In September 2022, 21 people with personal experience of genetic disease travelled from across the UK to sit as members of the UK Citizens Jury on Genome Editing. A citizens jury typically involves a period of intense learning from experts, focused deliberations, voting on an ethical question and the writing of policy recommendations.
The citizens jury deliberated over four days on the following question:
Are there any circumstances under which a UK Government should consider changing the law to allow intentional genome editing of human embryos for serious genetic conditions?
The aim was to provide an insight into the perspectives of a group of patients with inherited genetic conditions on what they think about the benefits, risks and wider harms emerging from the application of embryo genome editing. Their recommendations support policy makers, researchers and wider civil society to better understand informed public perspectives.
When polled at the end of the process the majority of the jurors agreed (17 to 4) that the government should consider changing the law to allow intentional genome editing of human embryos for serious genetic conditions
The output from these sessions includes a report collated by Involve UK and a short documentary film.