What does Halacha say about genetic engineering of humans?
The intention is to create a child that is originally from human DNA, but has undergone intentional changes.
Is it permissible to mix human DNA with foreign DNA? (Which is essentially creating monsters)
P.S.
The question follows the success of creating a mouse that is 4% human, and which could perhaps help with organ transplantation.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/21/us/human-mouse-chimera-hybrid-scn-trnd/index.html
I don’t see what prohibition there could be in this. They’ve written quite a bit about morality and the like (which also doesn’t impress me very much), but in Halacha, what I know really sounds like baseless rants (the Ramban on hybrids and the prohibition of interfering in creation).
I thought to myself that perhaps the prohibition that could be in this stems from the arrangements of kiddushin and marriage and having children from bastards.
(But if one learns a prohibition from this, then not only genetic engineering is forbidden but all fertilization that is not between a man and his wife, which is naturally forbidden.)
Or perhaps I could learn from the prohibitions of unnatural intercourse (male, animal) where there is no birth, and then perhaps one could learn that there is a strong and strong aspiration that unnatural birth is certainly forbidden.
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer
