The company, founded as a public benefit corporation, stated its goal is “to determine through rigorous preclinical work whether preventive gene editing can be developed safely to spare families from severe disease,” Christian Post reports.
But a Christian ethicist says it won't end there.
Who wouldn't want to eliminate cystic fibrosis or Alzheimer's disease or autism? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is among tech leaders dumping almost $30 million into the startup Preventative which is hoping for those breakthroughs.Katy Faust, a Christian ethicist and author, says the technology will eventually turn the world into a dystopian hellscape.
“They're going to create a master race. They're going to augment embryos. Yeah, sure, they're going to do it under the guise of, we're going to heal cystic fibrosis. But right now, we already have the ability to eliminate children with cystic fibrosis.”
Preventive co-founder and gene-editing scientist Lucas Harrington pledged to “not advance this technology to clinical human use if safety cannot be established through extensive research.”
“We will not compromise safety standards to accelerate timelines,” Harrington wrote.
Faust says even if Congress or the American Medical Association or the National Institutes of Health were to wake up to the danger and put fences around the technology, that doesn’t mean other countries would take an ethical approach.
“At this point, they're in the exploration phase of figuring out, can we do these technologies? But if he wants to apply it, he's not going to do it here. He's going to the UAE. So you'll just take this technology to the places where there's fewer barriers.
Her message to those storming ahead to make designer babies is practical.
“Stay in your lane. Stay in your lane. God chooses when to make life. He determines when to take life. He is the one that knits us together in our mother's womb.”
Faust says it going to be important to challenge the family members, your community and your government as the technology grows. Knowing and understanding the subject matter will be important.
“You're going to have to push back against bad policies, and you're going to have to push back against some bad personal decisions, maybe in your own life, or maybe in the life of those that are in your orbit. You need to know more than anybody else.”
