NJIKO: A Multi-Disciplinary Journal of Humanities, Law, Education and Social Sciences

Controversies continue to trail the morality of gene-editing especially as it affects the ontological constitution of the human person. While the gains of bio-medical engineering and technology to medical practice with regard to therapeutic considerations have not been disputed, a class of moralists think that gene-editing on the human embryo is unethical irrespective of the reasons. This paper therefore examines the main line of defense against manipulating the human embryo, bringing notable arguments from bioethics but situating within its argumentative strengths the defense that Jurgen Habermas gives to human dignity and especially within the context of embryonic geneediting. The objectives of this paper include: highlighting the strengths of ethical arguments against human embryo gene-editing; establishing the traditional and intellectual defenses against tempering with human life from the Habermasian context and pointing out the possible problems the uncontrolled activities of human embryonic gene-editing could cause to life and human dignity if nothing is done about it. Thus, this study is critical as it explores gene-editing and the actual status of the human embryo after it must have undergone laboratory manipulations, but also prescriptive as it explores typical ethical insights on the moral integrity of the human person within the fields of biogenetics.

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