Webinar #109: Dr Calum MacKellar - Eugenics and heritable genome editing

Recorded on 30 June 2022 for ICMDA Webinars. Dr Peter Saunders chairs a discussion with Dr Calum MacKellar. What will it mean for society if science enables us to choose a future child whose health, athletic ability or intelligence is predetermined? This future is becoming ever more likely with the latest developments in human reproduction. New procedures, making possible heritable genome modifications open the door to ‘sanitized’ selective eugenics; but these practices have some unnerving similarities to the discredited eugenic programmes of early twentieth-century regimes. A Christian perspective is urgently needed to evaluate both current and future selection practices. After completing his Diplome d'Ingénieure in bio-organic chemistry with the European High Institute of Chemistry, now part of the University of Strasbourg, in France, Dr MacKellar obtained his doctorate in Biochemistry with the University of Stuttgart in Germany. He worked with the University of Edinburgh as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and then in Glasgow industry synthesising new kinds of DNA to be used as possible drugs against disorders such as AIDS. He taught biological chemistry & bioethics at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, before returning to Strasbourg to work with the Bioethics Division of the Council of Europe. Since 2003 he has been the Director of Research of a Scottish bioethics charity and a Visiting Lecturer & Professor in bioethics at St Mary’s University, London. He is a member of the United Free Church of Scotland and is the author of The Ethics of the New Eugenics (2014) and Christianity and the New Eugenics (2020). To listen live to future ICMDA webinars, visit https://icmda.net/resources/webinars/