A CRISPR Calf Is Born. It's Definitely a Boy

In societies that have a duty of care to individuals, I think it's fair to believe people also have a reciprocal responsibility to take reasonable care of themselves.

For example, in theory not wearing a seatbelt is a purely personal decision.

In practice, that decision can have considerable negative externalities - impacting family, friends, emergency and medical personnel and finally the taxpayer (I live in a place with nationalised healthcare), etc etc.

Similar problems play out (statistically if not on a personal basis) with respect to drug use or other risky decisions like going into deep bush or out on the water without adequate precautions.

If there's a reasonable expectation of not being shunned and left to die alone in the event of a mishap, I'd hope that home experimenters would spare a thought for those who will no doubt help care for them and deal with the mess if something goes wrong.

That said, I expect and understand that reasonable people can hold quite different views on where the lines between social responsibility and individual freedom should be drawn.

People can absolutely do whatever they want to themselves of course. My concern is when they turn around and sell CRISPR kits and misinform the public so people like me (biologists/biohackers with connections to the DIY space) get asked by people suffering from currently incurable rare diseases how to CRISPR themselves to make it go away. It must be safe because they saw that guy do it on the internet and maybe he gave a tedx talk about it or something. The most you can do in that situation is be empathetic and try to have a conversation about why that's not a good idea. The one thing that makes the situation not as bad as it could be is that all of these DIY CRISPR kits suck. They're not likely to give themselves all the cancers since CAS9 probably isn't going to make it inside a single nucleus to wreck havoc on their DNA. The irresponsibility I'm referring to with these charlatans "educating" the public as biology "experts" so they can sell their DIY kits. They should still be free to do this and sell those kits (dialing down the medical talk since that is practicing medicine without a license) - but just because I think people should have the right to do that doesnt mean I think they should or that it is good for society, since the negative externalities are heartbreaking.