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Least extreme biophysics phd (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] JacksonLamb 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Seems like splitting hairs, at best, for you to claim the three edited human babies who were born from this experiment aren't part of the experiment. He fully aimed to study them and they are still being scientifically monitored.

He also had a bizarre contract he made the parents sign that if they changed their minds they had to reimburse him the financial costs of the experiment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

He also had a bizarre contract he made the parents sign that if they changed their minds they had to reimburse him the financial costs of the experiment

Here's a scenario.

Parent gets modded baby
Parent is approached by a corporation to take over the baby for their exp instead
- Corporation is willing to pay parent for it
Parent later goes and says no to Dr. He
Parent takes baby to the corporation instead, which now gets to step ahead of Dr. He
Dr. He gets no resultant data but is stuck with the costs of doing whatever he did.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] JacksonLamb 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think you're suffering from a form of justification bias. That sounds like something out of a dystopian sci fi.

Here's the MUCH more realistic scenario that makes his contract unethical:

Scientists try to introduce mutation into embryo
Mother for whatever reason decides she doesn't want to have the embryo implanted.
Who knows, maybe they can't afford kids. Or her and the father are about to break up. Or she has found out she's at risk of complications.
Or maybe they overhear that the experiment didn't go as planned and the mutation is useless or possibly harmful.

Anyway if they say no they're suddenly in debt millions of yuan.

Implanting an embryo into a person under those conditions would be coercion.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 14 hours ago

Mother for whatever reason decides she doesn’t want to have the embryo implanted.

Who knows, maybe they can’t afford kids. Or her and the father are about to break up. Or she has found out she’s at risk of complications.

I think I am just suffering lack of information.
I assumed the contract is to be an after birth thing and not something that makes sure that the mother has to bear the child.
Besides, if the implantation is not done, hasn't He not actually done the procedure and can choose another (although hard to do so in time)?
Does the embryo have some kind of compatibility with the mother, for implantation to be successful?

In case He has the option to find another chap for the process in the above cases, I won't consider the contract extending to this time.