I think about a parent facing the heartbreak of watching their child suffer from a preventable genetic disease, and the idea that we might have the tool to spare the next generation that pain but choose not to use it feels like a kind of quiet cruelty.
The 2018 He Jiankui case, where a scientist secretly edited twin embryos' genes in China, led to his imprisonment and near-universal condemnation from the global scientific community specifically because unintended off-target genetic effects remain scientifically unresolved, and any edit made to an embryo passes to all future generations without their consent.