Congress is the opposite of Progress. With the approval rating of just 11%, the US Congress once again proves that it is the definitive engine of slowing down progress, perhaps second only to the FDA. While certain amount of caution when it comes to new medication and gene therapy is warranted, stifling medical progress on grounds of yesterday’s ethics is counterproductive, and quite frankly one can argue that it is immoral.

By tucking two crucial sentences inside a federal spending bill last year, the U.S. Congress effectively banned the human testing of gene-editing techniques that could produce genetically modified babies. But the provision, which is up for renewal this year, has also flustered proponents of a promising technique that could help mothers avoid passing certain devastating genetic disorders to their children.

What drove this decision? Read on here: