The DNA-Dialogue: A Broad Societal Dialogue about Human Germline Genome Editing in the Netherlands

For years, calls for public involvement in the debate concerning the acceptability of human germline genome editing (HGGE) have been made. A multidisciplinary consortium of 11 organizations in the Netherlands organized a broad societal dialogue to inquire about the views of Dutch society toward HGGE. The project aimed to reach a wide and diverse audience and to stimulate a collective process of deliberative opinion forming and reflection. To that end, several instruments and formats were developed and employed. We present the results of 27 moderated dialogues organized between October 2019 and October 2020. Overall, participants of the dialogues were capable of assessing and discussing the subject of HGGE in a nuanced way. Analysis of these dialogues shows that in general, participants had no fundamental and absolute objections toward HGGE technology. However, they only deemed HGGE to be acceptable when it is used to prevent serious heritable diseases and under strict conditions, without affecting important (societal) values. There was a small group of participants who found HGGE fundamentally unacceptable because it would cross natural, socio-ethical, or religious boundaries.