Last Sunday’s “Storefront Genome” conference
had some of the greatest pioneering minds in bioethics and
scientific public policy discussing the dilemmas that advances in
biotechnology will present to society.
They posed many challenging questions about reproduction, law,
and humanity, to which no one has comprehensive answers.
In posing these questions, the conference speakers charted out
the dimensions of these dilemmas, highlighting factors that
solutions will require.
As citizens, leaders and future parents it will be the task of
our generation to determine the answers to these challenging
questions. We will have to build consensus for action and
legislation while easing cultural, religious, and international
dissent.
Though most of us won’t be directly involved in the
political efforts of the solution, we will all have to make
difficult, unsettling and even painful choices for ourselves and
our families.
As these challenges approach, we must educate ourselves about
the new science and begin the dialogue that will decide the course
of humanity.