Please, sign and circulate the International Declaration Against Legalization of Human Genetic Modification. After securing a critical mass of signatories, this instrument will be delivered by the International Coalition to Stop Designer Babies to the United Nations seeking its official support and global institutionalization.
Why?
In 2018, Chinese bioengineer He Jiankui gene-edited twin infants. He did this despite a strong international consensus against genetically modifying human embryos for implantation (i.e. human germline modification, HGM). He Jiankui received global condemnation and was imprisoned for three years. Three international scientific summits later, no global consensus in favor of relaxing restrictions on HGM could be reached. This confirms the position of the 1997 Oviedo Convention affirming world opinion against HGM. Yet, despite robust global opinion denouncing HGM, there is a clear and mounting push to normalize it’s clinical use by those who stand to profit financially and professionally.
To clarify: the Declaration supports genetic modification for gene therapy, known as somatic cell modification, which aims to help existing patients presently suffering from diseases. By contrast, HGM concerns the modification of reproductive cells, that is, cells constituting the human germline: sperm, eggs, or early embryos. Germline modification creates changes that will be inherited by future generations, opens the door to “enhancing” embryos to create designer babies, and constitutes medical experimentation on un-consenting children yet to be born. Owing to these and other safety and ethical concerns, over 70 countries have banned HGM’s clinical use. But this robust consensus is in danger of eroding in the face of mounting lobbying, billionaire funding and bioentrepreneurial investment, and the support of mainstreaming bioethicists:
Silicon Valley tech titans are throwing billions towards advancing HGM; scientific summits have floated ideas on how to move it forward, including tracking genetically modified children (i.e. living experiments) throughout their lives; and bioethicists have functioned to normalize the technology. This was executed most notably by the Hasting’s Center’s April 29, 2026 “debate”, structured not to engage whether HGM technology should be allowed but only how best to regulate it, assuming the eventuality of its clinical availability.
Widespread, grassroots advocacy is needed to bolster the existing consensus’ resilience. Please: sign and circulate the International Declaration Against Legalization of Human Genetic Modification