It all depends what your definition of genetic modification is.
No it doesn’t.
It’s a completely disingenuous argument and a false equivalency. We know that we are referring to GMO vs selective breeding. These are completely different mechanisms and in the latter case we understand the consequences and implications because humans have been doing it for millennia. In the former case we have not been doing it very long at all and do not yet fully understand the consequences and implications. I’m not saying that makes it inherently wrong, but it is a vast area of unknown ramifications. And given human’s already long history of fucking with nature and finding out my money is on those ramifications being less than ideal.