ReviewProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Setting ethical limits on human gene editing after the fall of the somatic/germline barrier.
Review in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- CRISPR/Cas9 in cancer therapy: clinical translation, mechanistic strategies, and therapeutic directions.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Review
- Navigating the human gene editing scene and proposing a new governance framework in Africa: from knowledge to policy to action.Frontiers in genome editing · 2026Article
- First steps down the slippery slope?: An analysis of the slippery-slope argument and its application to the question of assisted suicide.The Ulster medical journal · 2025Article
- Strategies for Interdisciplinary Human Gene Editing Research: Insights from a Swiss Project.The CRISPR journal · 2025Article
- CRISPR-Cas technologies in neurodegenerative disorders: mechanistic insights, therapeutic potential, and translational challenges.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Review
- Genes drive organisms and slippery slopes.Pathogens and global health · 2024Review
- Current Landscape of Gene Therapy for the Treatment of Cardiovascular Disorders.Current gene therapy · 2024Review
- Stakeholder Involvement in the Governance of Human Genome Editing in Japan.Asian bioethics review · 2023Article
- Points to consider in the development of national human genome editing policy.Cambridge prisms. Precision medicine · 2023Review
- Life 2.0-A CRISPR path to a sustainable planet.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
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Abstract
The ethical debate about what is now called human gene editing (HGE) has gone on for more than 50 y. For nearly that entire time, there has been consensus that a moral divide exists between somatic and germline HGE. Conceptualizing this divide as a barrier on a slippery slope, in this paper, I first describe the slope, what makes it slippery, and describe strong barriers that arrest the slippage down to the dystopian bottom of pervasive eugenic enhancement. I then show how the somatic/germline barrier in the debate has been weakened to the level of ineffectiveness, with no replacement below. I examine a number of possible barriers on the slope below the somatic/germline barrier, most of which lack sufficient strength. With the exception of the minority of people in the HGE debate who see the eugenic society as utopia, the majority will need a barrier on the slope to stop the slide to dystopia.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.