Final published version
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Germline Genetic Modification and Identity
T2 - the Mitochondrial and Nuclear Genomes
AU - Scott, Rosamund
AU - Wilkinson, Stephen Derek
PY - 2017/12/1
Y1 - 2017/12/1
N2 - In a legal ‘first’, the UK removed a prohibition against modifying embryos in human reproduction, to enable mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs), a move the Government distanced from ‘germline genetic modification’, which it aligned with modifying the nuclear genome. This paper (1) analyzes the uses and meanings of this term in UK/US legal and policy debates; and (2) evaluates related ethical concerns about identity. It shows that, with respect to identity, MRTs and nuclear genome editing techniques such as CRISPR/Cas-9 (now a policy topic), are not as different as has been supposed. While it does not follow that the two should be treated exactly alike, one of the central reasons offered for treating MRTs more permissively than nuclear genetic modification, and for not regarding MRTs as ‘germline genetic modification’, is thereby in doubt. Identity cannot, by itself, do the work thus far assigned to it, explicitly or otherwise, in law and policy.
AB - In a legal ‘first’, the UK removed a prohibition against modifying embryos in human reproduction, to enable mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs), a move the Government distanced from ‘germline genetic modification’, which it aligned with modifying the nuclear genome. This paper (1) analyzes the uses and meanings of this term in UK/US legal and policy debates; and (2) evaluates related ethical concerns about identity. It shows that, with respect to identity, MRTs and nuclear genome editing techniques such as CRISPR/Cas-9 (now a policy topic), are not as different as has been supposed. While it does not follow that the two should be treated exactly alike, one of the central reasons offered for treating MRTs more permissively than nuclear genetic modification, and for not regarding MRTs as ‘germline genetic modification’, is thereby in doubt. Identity cannot, by itself, do the work thus far assigned to it, explicitly or otherwise, in law and policy.
KW - mitochondrial replacement
KW - identity
KW - Germline
KW - Genome, Human
KW - Genetic modification
KW - CRISPR/Cas-9
U2 - 10.1093/ojls/gqx012
DO - 10.1093/ojls/gqx012
M3 - Journal article
VL - 37
SP - 886
EP - 915
JO - Oxford Journal of Legal Studies
JF - Oxford Journal of Legal Studies
SN - 0143-6503
IS - 4
ER -