Scientists have been manipulating DNA for decades, but early genetic-manipulation techniques were slow, expensive and geared to individual species.
Enter CRISPR — a fast, cheap and flexible way to make precise changes in any cell’s DNA.
CRISPR’s enormous promise has both scientists and investors aggressively seeking new therapeutic applications, including altering a gene within retinal cells to restore sight to patients with a rare cause of heritable blindness.
A more ambitious goal is to modify the “germ line,” the cells that give rise to sperm and egg, thereby creating genetic alterations that could be passed on to a patient’s children. The hope would be to eliminate inherited diseases like cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy or Huntington’s disease. Edits in the human germ line must be made on in-vitro-fertilized human embryos. And that’s where serious concerns arise.
First, CRISPR technology is not yet safe enough for medical use in human embryos. In early attempts to perform CRISPR edits in an embryo, scientists based in China detected unanticipated changes at multiple sites in the genome, which might have caused birth defects or diseases if the embryo had been brought to term. Recent attempts in an American lab were more encouraging, but improved accuracy resulted from unexpected and poorly understood biochemical mechanisms.
While some medical scientists argue that it’s morally wrong to withhold the cure to a genetic disease, the alteration of the human genome raises profound ethical questions. What if we used technology to select specific traits in offspring — height, skin color or intelligence? How would widespread genome editing affect the population genetics of our species in the future? If a sophisticated experimental technique like CRISPR is available only to the rich, could it exacerbate and entrench economic inequality at the biological level?
Issues such as these cry out for international consensus. For now, the laws of many Western European countries and the policies of American research agencies establish a moratorium on genetic manipulation of the human germ line. But a panel from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recently issued a report exploring the way forward for human gene therapy. Inaction by society is not an option. It is crucial that the pace of policymaking match the inevitably rapid advancement of genome-editing technology.
The simple, but disappointing, answer is that we cannot break down systemic racism within the judicial system until we have made significant inroads in eroding white supremacy itself.
White supremacy is defined as an ideology based on the belief that whites are superior to other races and is manifested through systems that maintain whites in superior positions.
The most cutting-edge research on implicit bias, including research conducted by Harvard’s Project Implicit, confirms that most Americans associate Blacks with crime and violence. Until fairly recently, these beliefs were held consciously and articulated publicly. Today, these beliefs are largely unconscious, but nevertheless play a significant role in decision-making processes. Accordingly, when actors within the criminal justice system make decisions, they act on these biases — even if they are not aware of them.
Bias in the criminal justice system begins with police officers; they decide who to stop and frisk or to arrest. Study after study demonstrates that police officers bring Blacks into the system with far greater frequency than whites. The process continues with prosecutors deciding whether to charge those arrested, take them to trial, or urge them to enter guilty pleas. Again, fewer whites are charged, compelled to enter guilty pleas, or sent to trial. At conviction, judges decide punishments. Blacks routinely receive harsher punishments than whites, up to and including the death penalty. Before judges can hand down sentences, juries must determine guilt or innocence. Juries convict black defendants at higher rates than white defendants.
A seemingly straightforward way of handling this problem of discretion is to eliminate it by crafting strict guidelines about what to do at each stage of the process. This has been tried since the 1970s and has failed, or has produced horrific unintended consequences. For example, mandatory-minimum sentencing was designed to ensure that all criminals convicted of particular crimes would receive similar punishments. That reform is responsible for today’s mass incarceration crisis.
In sum, we cannot make progress within the criminal justice system until we deal with white supremacy in our society as a whole. And the first step in that process is acknowledging that it is a problem, something we have been loathe to do.
Glenn McNair is a professor of history at Kenyon and former police officer and special agent within the U.S. Treasury Department.