Illness or Identity? A Disability Rights Scholar Comments on the Plan to Use CRISPR to Prevent Deafness
By Katie Hasson
| 09.10.2019
Biopolitical Times
https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical-times/illness-or-identi…
Jackie Leach Scully is Professor of Bioethics and Director of the Disability Innovation Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. When news broke that Denis Rebrikov was planning to use CRISPR to edit a hereditary mutation that leads to deafness, CGS asked her to share her perspective on this development as a scholar in the disability rights community. You can read more from Professor Scully on the topic of Rebrikov’s proposed experiment here.
What was your reaction to the news that Rebrikov’s focus has shifted from HIV to preventing deafness?
This shift in focus is worrying for a number of reasons. We’d probably all agree that HIV infection is a serious condition, but we would not agree that there’s no other way of avoiding infection or of managing [...]