THE ANNOUNCEMENT in November of the editing of the genomes of two embryos that are now baby girls, by He Jiankui, a Chinese DNA-sequencing expert—brought much righteous, and rightful, condemnation. But it also brought a lot of tut-tutting from the outside world about how this sort of thing was to be expected in a place like China, where regulations, whatever they may say on paper, are laxly enforced. Dig deeper, though, and what happened starts to look more intriguing than just the story of a lone maverick having gone off the rails in a place with lax regulation. It may instead be an example of a phenomenon called ethics dumping.

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In America, in effect, the implantation of genetically modified embryos into a woman’s womb is forbidden. Such an experimental medical procedure would require permission from the country’s Food and Drug Administration, and such permission would not be forthcoming. Carrying on regardless would be a federal crime and one that, according to Hank Greely, a lawyer and bioethicist at Stanford University, might attract a fine of as much as $100,000, and a year in jail.