The world will soon use human germline genomic engineering technology. The benefits will be enormous: Our children will be long-lived, will have strong and diverse capacities, and will be halfway to the end of all illness.
To quickly bring about this world and make it a good one, it has to be a world that is beneficial, or at least acceptable, to a great majority of people. What laws would make this world beneficial to most, and acceptable to approximately all? We’ll have to chew on this question ongoingly.
Genomic Liberty is a proposal for one overarching principle, among others, to guide public policy and legislation around germline engineering. It asserts:
Parents have the right to freely choose the genomes of their children.
If upheld, genomic liberty protects the rights of parents from regulation by the state.
A visual summary of the more detailed structure of the principle of genomic liberty:
The principle of genomic liberty has several potential exceptions. These cases aren’t strongly protected by genomic liberty, and therefore could potentially be regulated while upholding genomic liberty:
Within the principle of genomic liberty, there are tentpole principles that apply to a narrower set of cases, but that give stronger protection against regulation. These tentpole principles help to clarify genomic liberty, and to fortify it against inappropriate regulation:
Non-intervention liberty. Parents have a very strong right to not genomically intervene on their child, in whole or in any aspect.
Propagative liberty. Parents have a strong right to propagate their own genes and their own traits, in whole or in some aspects.
Typicalization liberty. Parents have a strong right to move their future child closer, in expectation, to the median value of one or more traits.
Beneficent liberty. Parents have a strong right to make well-informed genomic choices that a reasonable person would agree are aimed at giving their child a life of wellbeing.
Altruistic liberty. Parents have a strong right to make well-informed genomic choices that a reasonable person would agree are aimed at giving their child a life that would contribute to the wellbeing of others.
The remainder of the article expands on this summary.
My hope is to start a conversation in which we seriously envision this coming world and think about how to make it a good one.
To restate the principle of genomic liberty a bit more precisely:
Human parents have the natural right—a negative right against infringement on liberty by the state and society—to freely choose the genomes of their human children, in whole or in some aspects.
The principle of genomic liberty isn’t saying that any specific choices you might make about your child’s genome are morally good or bad. Rather, genomic liberty is a political principle, like the principle of the freedom of speech. It says that parents are, by right, the primary decision-makers about the genomes of their own children. Therefore, states should ensure that parents have wide, protected latitude within the law to influence the genomes of their children, in whole or in some aspects, if they wish. Anomaly, Gyngell, and Savulescu (2020)1 suggest applying “regulatory parsimony”2 to the question of regulating genomic choices; to some extent this agrees in spirit with the regulatory stance mandated by the principle of genomic liberty.
(For more elaboration on the nature of the principle, see the appendix “Genomic liberty is a political principle”.)
Like any principle, genomic liberty is not simple and absolute. It competes with other principles and practicalities, and therefore it has exceptions which have to be carved out. In order to be strongly upheld as a right, genomic liberty should be protected by clarifying and codifying its concrete instances. That is the aim of the rest of this article.
I know next to nothing about law and public policy. So this article is speculation from a layman’s perspective, and might therefore contain obvious blunders. I am out of my depth, here; and I’ve felt conflicted about several of the points proposed here. My opinions will change.
My hope with this proposal is to nucleate discussion and eventually lead to better thought-out policies. This proposal only even attempts to partially address one element—the overarching public policy principles—out of many elements of a good future societal stance towards germline engineering.
This article is not mainly meant to make the case for genomic liberty, and does not present an overall argument. It is mainly meant to present a proposal for what the principle of genomic liberty should mean in the first place. I do make some arguments, mainly in order to explain why this proposal is specifically the way it is, rather than being some other similar proposal.
This article is produced by precautionary foresight about a technology and societal situation that does not exist yet. Therefore, it is not well-grounded in empirical observation of the outcomes in question or in the practicalities of law and law enforcement. Also, it will focus on difficult and in many cases somewhat alarming scenarios, in order to deal with them; but remember that, by and large, the technology will be greatly beneficial to the great majority of users making free, reasonable enough choices.
Consider, for comparison, the principle of the freedom of thought. This principle is codified in the First Amendment of the US constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances3.
The throughline of the First Amendment rights is freedom of thought. James Madison, in his address to the House of Representatives introducing a draft Bill of Rights, even suggested as part of religious protections the further protection for moral beliefs in general: “[…], nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.”4.
Although freedom of thought is a cherished keystone of free and open societies, it is far from absolute. Many people take quite strong stances defending freedom of speech, but nevertheless, almost everyone agrees that some kinds of speech should be prohibited. (Of course, there is disagreement about where to draw the line between protected and unprotected speech.)
Here’s a schematic depicting this situation. The light blue oval is freedom of thought, which is protected under the First Amendment. The red ovals are some of the exceptions to freedom of thought.
The text of the First Amendment lists several rights: to religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. Why list all these rights, instead of just a single right? Maybe the First Amendment could have read simply:
Congress shall make no law prohibiting or abridging the free exercise of thought, whether by individuals or groups.
Madison explains why there are rights being explicitly declared at all:
In the declaration of rights which [Great-Britain] has established, the truth is, they have gone no farther, than to raise a barrier against the power of the crown; the power of the legislature is left altogether indefinite. Altho’ I know whenever the great rights, the trial by jury, freedom of the press, or liberty of conscience, came in question in that body, the invasion of them is resisted by able advocates, yet their Magna Charta does not contain any one provision for the security of those rights, respecting which, the people of America are most alarmed. The freedom of the press and rights of conscience, those choicest privileges of the people, are unguarded in the British constitution.
The rising and falling tides of legislative sentiment will probe the inlets to our rights. The precious rights therefore have to be defended most strongly in those places. Freedom of thought may have been a leitmotif in the American spirit, but to be a strong right, it needed to be codified as more concrete tentpole freedoms:
These tentpole principles, enumerated in the First Amendment, are more narrow than a broad freedom of thought, but they are more clear and more strong. They are placed strategically where there may be a motive from legislators to restrict freedoms, and they protect some of the most important aspects of freedom of thought.
As with the First Amendment, genomic liberty will have exceptions. The existence of exceptions is compatible with the principle being strong. Part of clarifying the strong core of genomic liberty is the task of circumscribing it by explicitly accepting limitations on its purview of protection. What remains unexcepted is the core domain of the GL principle, which is to be strongly upheld and applied to prevent inappropriate regulation.
The following list gives some recognized exceptions to genomic liberty. These genomic choices can be banned without inappropriately contravening the genomic liberty principle.
A schematic summary of the exceptions:
Elaboration on the list of exceptions:
Potentially regulatable: Genomic choices that are clearly prospectively very unsafe.
Potentially regulatable: Genomic choices that remove a core aspect of human nature.
Potentially regulatable: Genomic choices with extreme negative externalities on other citizens.
Potentially regulatable: Nonconsensual use of someone’s DNA.
Potentially regulatable: Genomic alterations chosen by parents who are severely non compos mentis.
Potentially regulatable: Genomic choices that would severely permanently impair the child’s ability to communicate their state of mind.
Genomic liberty as a principle of lawmaking will be pushed against: people will try to make laws that restrict genomic choices. Some of those attempts will fall within appropriate exceptions to GL; some of those attempts will be inappropriate, and will have to be combated if the principle of genomic liberty is to be upheld.
The specific protections listed in the First Amendment uphold crucial elements of the general right to freedom of thought. Analogously, in order to weather legislative pushes appropriately, we will shore up genomic liberty with tentpole principles. As is the case with the First Amendment protections, these tentpole protected liberties are not exceptionless; but they are especially strong protections which would require very good reason to encroach upon.
A schematic summary of the tentpole principles that hold up general genomic liberty:
Elaboration on the list of tentpole principles:
Parents have a very strong right to not genomically intervene on their child, in whole or in any aspect.
Parents have a strong right to propagate their own genes and their own traits, in whole or in some aspects.
Parents have a strong right to move their future child closer, in expectation, to the median value of one or more traits.
Parents have a strong right to make well-informed genomic choices that a reasonable person would agree are aimed at giving their child a life of wellbeing.
Parents have a strong right to make well-informed genomic choices that a reasonable person would agree are aimed at giving their child a life that would contribute to the wellbeing of others.
Genomic liberty prevents the state from unduly restricting the freedom of parents to choose the genomes of their children. This principle will defend most people’s values, while the exceptions leave room to prevent hypothetically possible extreme misuses of germline engineering technology. Thus society can get the diverse and widely distributed benefits of germline engineering, without unacceptable cost.
Copying the fuller statement of the GL principle:
Human parents have the natural right—a negative right against infringement on liberty by the state and society—to freely choose the genomes of their human children, in whole or in some aspects.
Some clarifications:
For example, choosing to make your male child very tall is a kind of burning of the commons: Perhaps he’ll be more successful himself, but if everyone does this, no one is better off and everyone is less healthy. GL says this must not be prohibited by the state.
However, it might be correct to socially disapprove of that sort of choice. Further, self-regulatory organizations might put soft restrictions in place, e.g. requiring waiting periods, specific information being delivered to the parents, etc., to dissuade them from making choices that many perceive to be anti-social. This might be problematic in itself, but in any case it is not in the purview of GL.
For example, the moral principle of procreative beneficence as proposed by Savulescu says that “couples who decide to have a child have a significant moral reason to select the child who, given his or her genetic endowment, can be expected to enjoy the most well-being”10. I subscribe to this moral principle. However, GL would oppose this principle being codified into law as a legal obligation for parents to make specific genomic choices. A major issue with doing so is that “well-being” is hard to define, and more importantly people might have genuine differences in their vision of a good life for their children.
Another moral principle for genomic choices is procreative altruism “according to which parents have significant moral reason to select a child whose existence can be expected to contribute more to (or detract less from) the well-being of others than any alternative child they could have”11. Again, this is a true moral principle, but, according to the GL, should not be made into law.
Regarding synthetic biology in general, Gutmann (2011) suggests “regulatory parsimony”12. Anomaly, Gyngell, and Savulescu (2020), in discussing collective action problems with genomic choices, suggest applying regulatory parsimony: instead of complex regulation that gives an unclear benefit and restricts parental freedom, we can address collective action problems with social norms13. This agrees with the genomic liberty principle: There may be some harms to society due to externalities of genomic choices, but these genomic choices should not be made illegal until there’s a quite strong reason to do so.
Summary:
The principle of genomic liberty is a proposed political policy. As a moral stance, it asserts: The moral cost of curtailing reproductive genomic autonomy is very high, so most uses of germline engineering should not be prohibited by the state. A political consensus to adopt this principle will allow us to get the great benefits of germline engineering without the state infringing on reproductive genomic autonomy.
Elaboration in the following subsections:
Summary:
Genomic liberty is primarily a political principle, not a moral one. It says that, as a society, we should legally protect the right of parents to make determinations about their child’s genome. It does not especially recommend that anyone should treat all possible genomic choices as equally moral, advisable, or socially acceptable.
Elaboration:
If I adopt the genomic liberty principle, then, for example, that means I must advocate for the legal right of deaf parents to alter the genome of their potential child so that the child will likely be deaf. And, I must give a minimum of social acceptance to such parents: I cannot discriminate against them in public business transactions, or coordinate social harassment to push them out of communities.
However, I can still hold the moral position that deaf parents ought not to do so. Perhaps I believe making your child deaf is immoral, on the grounds that you ought to give your child as much capacity as is feasible, or on the grounds that the child didn’t consent to that atypical alteration. I can argue for that moral position, and express disapproval of people’s behavior, while still upholding the political principle of genomic liberty. (In fact, personally, I’m quite undecided on the moral question, but I am decided that this choice should be a protected right.)
Of course, a political stance has to be a moral stance, to some degree. To support the genomic liberty principle is also to make a moral assertion:
For the great majority of ways people will use germline engineering, that use will be not so morally abhorrent that we should use state force to prevent that use, given the high moral cost of curtailing reproductive genomic autonomy.
Summary:
The point of political principles isn’t to legislate what’s moral, but rather just to legislate legislation. The point of legislation is to make an acceptable compromise that we can agree on. An acceptable compromise should let us interface with fellow citizens at least well enough for basic civil coexistence, and should not produce truly abhorrent outcomes that would reasonably demand harmful unlawful actions to prevent. We don’t have to like what other people do; we just have to make enough laws that we can fruitfully live together without violence.
Elaboration:
Needless to say, if we think some behavior is moral or immoral, that influences which laws we can and do make about the behavior, and influences which behavior we socially punish. People who believe abortion is immoral will support more restrictions on abortion, and will advocate against political candidates who support abortion rights. Murdering already-born people is very widely agreed to be highly immoral, and is therefore extra super illegal.
However, moral stances do not and should not always translate into legal regulation. There are many forms of speech that many find abhorrent, such as expressing Nazi ideology. In 1977, two Jewish lawyers from the ACLU, a civil liberties organization, famously helped to legally defend a neo-Nazi group’s right to hold public demonstrations. The legal protection is upheld even for abhorrent behavior.
Furthermore, attempting to enforce a moral view through coordinated extra-judicial violence should be viewed as an extremely unacceptable breach of civil norms, even beyond being straightforwardly illegal. In order to maintain basic order, the government has a monopoly on initiating violence. The government does abuse this power, and this betrayal is extremely corrosive; but the government monopoly on initiating violence is crucial. Vigilante justice, mob violence, and coordinated illegal harassment are another betrayal of basic civil order. Such extra-judicial violence is politically and morally motivated: no one is staging illegally violent protests in order to legalize murdering already-born people, because approximately no one believes that murder is morally or socially acceptable.
Legal principles are supposed to be how we achieve a basic coordination, so that individuals and groups can live together in a country, freely and without unduly destructive conflict. Assaulting legal abortion clinics, doctors, and patients is unacceptable; political riots that destroy and disrupt public property are unacceptable; SWATing ideological Nazis is unacceptable; harassing sex workers is unacceptable. Get the law changed, or restrict yourself to non-violent opposition.
Actions that harm others are much more heavily regulated compared to actions that only harm yourself. Consuming consensually-produced pornography is legal, suicide is legal, alcohol addiction is legal. All of these are to one or another extent self-harming, and in many cases immoral, but they generally don’t materially harm others enough to justify per se legal regulation.
So generally, the point of law, flowing from political policy, is a peaceful enough coexistence through resolution of conflicts with sufficient justice for all parties.
Summary:
Many people will have various objections to different ways that parents might wish to alter their child’s genome. However, the genomic liberty principle states that these objections should, for the most part, not become law. Broad genomic liberty should be an acceptable compromise: it protects individual reproductive autonomy, while leaving room for prohibition of exceptionally harmful uses.
Elaboration:
The use of human germline genomic engineering technology will be contentious. Many will strongly oppose using it at all. Many others will oppose any permission from the state to alter genomes. Many will strongly oppose some of its uses, e.g. parents altering their child’s IQ or parents predisposing their child to dwarfism.
On the other hand, many will oppose any influence on people’s reproduction from the state, as that would overlap in intention and in practice with harmful eugenic policies. Many will strongly oppose specific restrictions on the use of germline engineering. For example, some fraction of gay people might strongly wish to predispose their own child to also be gay. Some fraction of Christian people might strongly wish to predispose their own child to remain Christian through adulthood. Many such groups would have reason to oppose restrictions on their ability to propagate.
The benefits of germline engineering will be straightforwardly awesome: halfway to the end of all disease, long lives for our children, and a great flowering of many diverse human capacities. To get these benefits, we need a political policy about germline engineering that most people find acceptable.
If there were a political policy that had the state substantially infringing on people’s reproductive genomic choices, that political policy would be a poor compromise. If there were lots of people who would want to choose aspects of their children’s genomes, but who can’t because of state regulation, those people would have reason to strongly object to the policy. Thus, the principle of genomic liberty is meant to be a central aspect of a broadly acceptable compromise policy.
Anomaly, Jonathan, Christopher Gyngell, and Julian Savulescu. ‘Great Minds Think Different: Preserving Cognitive Diversity in an Age of Gene Editing’. Bioethics 34, no. 1 (January 2020): 81–89. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12585.↩︎
Gutmann, Amy. ‘The Ethics of Synthetic Biology: Guiding Principles for Emerging Technologies’. Hastings Center Report 41, no. 4 (2011): 17–22. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1552-146X.2011.tb00118.x.↩︎
‘U.S. Constitution - First Amendment | Resources | Constitution Annotated | Congress.Gov | Library of Congress’. Accessed 16 March 2025. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/.↩︎
‘Founders Online: Amendments to the Constitution, [8 June] 1789’. University of Virginia Press. Accessed 16 March 2025. http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-12-02-0126.↩︎
Miller, Joshua D., and Donald R. Lynam. ‘Understanding Psychopathy Using the Basic Elements of Personality’. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 9, no. 5 (2015): 223–37. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12170.↩︎
Gutmann, Amy. ‘The Ethics of Synthetic Biology: Guiding Principles for Emerging Technologies’. Hastings Center Report 41, no. 4 (2011): 17–22. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1552-146X.2011.tb00118.x.↩︎
Anomaly, Jonathan, Christopher Gyngell, and Julian Savulescu. ‘Great Minds Think Different: Preserving Cognitive Diversity in an Age of Gene Editing’. Bioethics 34, no. 1 (January 2020): 81–89. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12585.↩︎
Savulescu, Julian, and Guy Kahane. ‘The Moral Obligation To Create Children With The Best Chance Of The Best Life’. Bioethics 23, no. 5 (June 2009): 274–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2008.00687.x.↩︎
Douglas, Thomas, and Katrien Devolder. ‘Procreative Altruism: Beyond Individualism in Reproductive Selection’. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine 38, no. 4 (1 August 2013): 400–419. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jht022.↩︎
Savulescu, Julian, and Guy Kahane. ‘The Moral Obligation To Create Children With The Best Chance Of The Best Life’. Bioethics 23, no. 5 (June 2009): 274–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2008.00687.x.↩︎
Douglas, Thomas, and Katrien Devolder. ‘Procreative Altruism: Beyond Individualism in Reproductive Selection’. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine 38, no. 4 (1 August 2013): 400–419. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jht022.↩︎
Gutmann, Amy. ‘The Ethics of Synthetic Biology: Guiding Principles for Emerging Technologies’. Hastings Center Report 41, no. 4 (2011): 17–22. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1552-146X.2011.tb00118.x.↩︎
Anomaly, Jonathan, Christopher Gyngell, and Julian Savulescu. ‘Great Minds Think Different: Preserving Cognitive Diversity in an Age of Gene Editing’. Bioethics 34, no. 1 (January 2020): 81–89. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12585.↩︎
