Enhanced Beings

Today, scientists are using CRISPR/Cas9 and other molecular editing tools to alter human gametes and embryos, a practice known as human germline modification. In the near future, these efforts may lead to the birth of children with better health, improved memories, and extended lifespans. However, critics claim that human germline modification exceeds divine and natural boundaries, transforms reproduction into manufacture, and yields apocalyptic outcomes such as the collapse of democracy. Enhanced Beings: Human Germline Modification and the Law analyzes and critiques these objections on both biological and political grounds. Professor Kerry Lynn Macintosh discusses the hidden psychology behind the objections, and describes the laws that affect this new technology. Provocative and timely, Enhanced Beings argues that bans on human germline modification pose a threat to scientists and science, parents, children, foreigners, and society.

'Kerry Lynn Macintosh's Enhanced Beings: Human Germline Modification and the Law is another timely book by a respected law professor on a cutting-edge issue of our time. Professor Macintosh takes on the standard objections about technology and psychology to germline modification and shows how they are groundless. Her book is especially strong in discussing the legal barriers to germline modification and the harms they might do.' Gregory Pence, Philosophy Chair, and Director of the Early Medical Student Acceptance Program at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, 'The ability to modify human genes will soon tempt parents to create designer children different - and arguably better - than nature would have done on its own. That prospect threatens to inflame public debate, and prompt ill-considered measures out of proportion to the issues at hand. To inform these developments, Kerry Lynn Macintosh has written a comprehensive account of the science, the likely implications, the ethical and policy arguments, and the possible legal responses. Her timely and well-written account promises to influence a controversial issue in a measured and intelligent way.' June Carbone, Robina Chair of Law, Science and Technology, University of Minnesota

Kerry Lynn Macintosh is Professor of Law at Santa Clara University, California, School of Law. She received her B.A. from Pomona College and her J.D. from Stanford Law School. Professor Macintosh is the author of Human Cloning: Four Fallacies and Their Legal Consequences (Cambridge, 2012) and Illegal Beings: Human Clones and the Law (Cambridge, 2005). She has also published articles about infertility, assisted reproductive technologies, and embryonic stem cell research. Professor Macintosh is a member of the American Law Institute, a law reform organization.