Q&A: What Does Jewish Law Say About Genetic Engineering of Human Beings?
Originally published:
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What Does Jewish Law Say About Genetic Engineering of Human Beings?
Question
The intention is to create an embryo whose origin is human DNA, but which has undergone deliberate modifications.
Is it permitted to mix human DNA with foreign DNA? (Which is basically creating monsters.)
P.S.
The question comes בעקבות the success in creating a mouse that is 4% human, and that may be able to help with organ transplantation.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/21/us/human-mouse-chimera-hybrid-scn-trnd/index.html
Answer
I don’t see what prohibition there could be here. Quite a bit has been written about morality and the like (which also doesn’t impress me very much), but in Jewish law, what I know of really sounds like unsupported homiletics (Nachmanides on forbidden mixtures and the prohibition on interfering with creation).
I thought to myself that perhaps the prohibition that could apply here stems from the laws of betrothal and marriage, having children, and mamzer status.
(But if one derives a prohibition from that, then not only would genetic engineering be forbidden, but any fertilization that is not naturally between a man and his wife would also be forbidden.)
Or perhaps one could learn it from the forbidden sexual relations that are not in the natural manner (male, animal), where there is no birth, and then perhaps one could infer by an a fortiori argument that where there is birth not in the natural manner, it is certainly forbidden.