Credit: The Daily Beast

A research team in China genetically engineered human embryos this week. Beyond unethical, the practice adds fire to an already heated issue: reproductive freedom.

That uneasy nether-realm where genes and ethics meet up with possibly mad scientists was exposed again this week as China announced they were “editing” the genes of human embryos.

Immediately and convincingly, scientific leaders from the U.S. stepped up to declare this to be a bad idea and even a very bad idea—though not because they were not curious about what experimentation could reveal. Actually I suspect they are itching to do the same sort of work just to see what happens—a basic and ubiquitous childlike curiosity resides at the core of any decent scientist. Rather they, like any watcher of Jurassic Park, are worried about the law of unintended consequences. What if something goes wrong and we make a 40-foot tall linebacker who eats people and ozone for lunch?

The entire enterprise is extremely sci-fi still, easily decades […]