A Genetic Makeover: Motives for Self-Enhancement with CRISPR

Abstract

Societal expectations brought on by social media, intelligence standards, and material measurements of success have shown to be a motivating factor in most peoples’ lives, governing many of their choices and decisions. Thus, with the proposition of a technology that could allow people to genetically enhance themselves to a certain extent, society is prompted with a conundrum concerning the regulation and usage of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR). Currently, the definitions of genetic treatment versus genetic enhancement remain ambiguous and are determined on a case by case basis. This article attempts to analyze how societal expectations have impacted the debate on human genetic enhancement. It also evaluates the need for preventative or permissive regulations towards genetic self-enhancement.