'Three-parent babies' are coming. We are resistant to wisdom, let's pray we are resistant to the consequences

Disrespect for human life is just one eventual consequence of our incessant tinkering.

British doctors have been given the OK to create embryos from three parents to prevent genetic diseases. The first such child could be born this year.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- Doctors are working to prevent mitochondrial diseases, which are genetic defects passed down from mother to baby. Using genetic modification, doctors can now edit out defective genes and replace them with working genes donated by a healthy mother. The result is a baby that is born of two mothers, and does not inherent the birth mother's genetic defect.

The concern is the procedure will encourage the genetic modification of humans. Scientific production of human embryos is dangerous. At a minimum, doctors often fertilize several eggs creating multiple viable embryos. But most are never implanted into a womb, and die as a result. According to Catholic teaching and science itself, this is a form of homicide against an unborn person. 

There are also the dangers associated with genetically modifying human beings. There is no idea what will happen when humans start to modify our own genome. New genetic interactions could develop that could prove fatal or disastrous. And there is the possibility of genetic discrimination, an elevated form of racism against people with just two parents.

Such a cautionary tale was published in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In his fictional dystopia, people had no mothers and were birthed from an assembly line. As part of the process, the children were genetically altered to make some intelligent and others dumb. The result was a highly-stratified society with a rigid caste system. The system was fundamentally inhuman and lacked respect for human dignity and life.

It is the rapid pace of technological advancement that seems to be outstripping our wisdom. We find ourselves able to do things, and we rarely stop to ask if we should do them. The lesson is that we could be opening a proverbial Pandora's box, and will be forced to live with the consequences.

Unfortunately, if we are resistant to this wisdom, then we had better hope we are also resistant to the consequences.

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