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“becomes an obligatory and not merely a permitted practice.”
We go against nature when we prevent or cure a disease. Nature and natural processes are, however, not sacrosanct in the Jewish tradition. We actively seek to change our medical possibilities.
The Jewish tradition, by accepting and legitimizing human intervention to affect cures, extends this positive approach to medical procedures before conception, in vitro, and in the womb. Traditionalists and more liberal commentators approve of therapeutic genetic engineering. Gene therapy, assuming it is a proven form of medical treatment, aims to prevent disease, restore health, and prolong life, all of which are acceptable goals within the physician’s Divine license to heal.
Gene therapy to replace the missing enzyme causing TaySachs disease or to repair the defective gene resulting in hemophilia or Huntington's disease are sanctioned under Jewish law because they are done with the intent of restoring health and prolonging life. This
type of gene therapy represents a legitimate implementation of the physicians’ mandate to cure the sick, thereby doing the Divine work of restoring health. Physician Fred Rosner , a traditionalist , maintains
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that therapeutic genetic engineering serves as“a legitimate modification of the natural order,” and does not“undermine God ’s creation of the world by manipulating nature.”
Liberal commentators take a similar, permissive view of gene therapy as an extension of medicine. Because Jewish sages sought to avoid genetic problems, Conservative Rabbi David Golinkin reasons they would approve of gene therapy aimed at eliminating serious or fatal genetic diseases both before or after birth." Any surgery permitted on a person is permissible on a gene before conception, in vitro, and during gestation. Because the Jewish tradition has a presumption in favor of curing illness, Conservative Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff sees therapeutic genetic engineering as an“unmitigated blessing.”'* Focusing on disease, Dorff goes so far as to suggest: 4 would be inclined to permit stem cell change as well as somatic cell