Perfecting Life: Should We Edit the Human Genome?

Scientific advancement has progressed significantly, to a point where humans are now easily able to edit a wide range of genomes. CRISPR-Cas9 is the widely used tool and has “caused considerable excitement and alarm throughout the international biomedical community” (Brokowski). In reality, CRISPR/Cas is simply a system found in nature, where bacteria would insert pieces of invading virus’ DNA into themselves as a mechanism of defense, and humans simply learned from it. Experimentation on animals and plants has a long history; selective breeding has been ongoing for thousands of years…