Repoliticizing heritable human genome editing: discursive narrowing and technomoral change in the international debate on human germline modification

Since the birth of gene-edited babies in China in 2018, public debates about Human Germline Genome Editing (HGGE) have re-ignited. Based on a literature review, legal analysis, and our involvement in a consortium project aimed at fostering public deliberation on HGGE, this article offers a reflection on how debates around this technology are evolving. We argue that they tend to be subject to discursive narrowing, a form of framing that reduces the space for open moral deliberation, promotes the desirability of HGGE and depoliticizes the issue. We explain this discursive narrowing through the philosophical theory of technomoral change, which unravels the reciprocal influence of technology and morality. We conclude by showing that—exactly because of this reciprocal influence—a repoliticization of the discussion on HGGE is needed and propose some recommendations concerning how the discursive narrowing of societal and scientific debates on this technology can be undone.