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The children also don’t consent to having inferior genetics that could have been fixed. The argument is purely symmetrical.

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The arguments look very different if they had tried to cure a severe genetic disease. The risk/benefit calculation would be entirely different compared to the stunt that was actually performed.

My point is that in cases where consent is impossible like for unborn children, the bar is much higher on what kind of experiment could be considered ethical. There must be a clear potential benefit for the child and an acceptable risk compared to that benefit. This experiment fails on both.

Their "stunt" was when they attempted to make the child immune to HIV because both parents had HIV. Did the children consent to be passed HIV from their mother?

On the one hand we have very well validated methods of preventing transmission of HIV from mother to child, on the other we have an experimental gene modification technique attempting to use a blunt instrument to modify a gene that may reduce the chance of contracting HIV. Yes, the stunt was unnecessary, likely ineffective, and incredibly unethical.

(wiki at least also disagrees with you and said the mothers were HIV negative, so plain old in vitro fertilization would have been all that was actually needed)

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