Opinion: We need a temporary moratorium on using gene editing to create babies
The rationale for using #CRISPR and other gene-editing to modify eggs, sperm, and embryos doesn't make sense. We need a moratorium on doing that until it is clearer.
On a cold, drizzly night almost three years ago, I stood inside the nearly deserted Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., I was in town to attend the first International Summit on Human Gene Editing organized by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. After a day of intense talks at the meeting, I had gone for a long walk and found myself looking up at Big Abe. A big question was on my mind: Would the organizers of the meeting call for a moratorium on using CRISPR to make gene-edited babies, as I hoped they would?
They didn’t.
When I learned of that decision, my feeling was that someone would report the creation of the first
