The Australian Family, April 2000, p. 37
Cloning Concerns
The stuff of science fiction just a few decades ago has now become reality. Indeed, some scientists are speaking of human cloning becoming reality in just a few short years. The modern technological breakthroughs that have taken place recently have taken the idea of cloning out of the realm of comic books and science fiction and put it into the public arena. Yet the subject of cloning, like other new biotechnological and biomedical developments, has tended to focus on the hows and whys of science, instead of the ifs and oughts of ethics.
In addition to a whole range of ethical questions that must be explored before we even consider the possibility of human cloning, other questions need to be addressed: questions of personal identity, and questions of the nature of families and relationships. In an age which has seen the traditional family redefined and transformed into whole new shapes and sizes, the issue of cloning will further raise questions of what is a family, let alone what is a human.
It is this brave new world of redefined personalities, families and social roles which makes human cloning seem both tempting and plausible. As ethicist Leon Kass has put it: "In a world whose once-given natural boundaries are blurred by technological change and whose moral boundaries are seemingly up for grabs, it is much more difficult to make persuasive the still compelling case against cloning human beings".
Although general in scope, this paper will give special attention to the way in which human cloning can and will impact upon the family.
Cloning took a big leap forward in February 1997 when seven-month-old Dolly the sheep was displayed at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland. The cloning technique involved the following procedure: genetic material of a donor sheep was placed inside an unfertilized egg stripped of its genetic identity (nucleus) and allowed to unite, with cell division initiated by a jolt of electricity. The developing embryo was then gestated in a surrogate sheep. This resulted in the birth of a live sheep with the same genetic makeup as the donor.
Other successful attempts at cloning in the past had only involved an embryonic cell. This was the first successful case of cloning involving an adult somatic cell. We have had plenty of plant and animal breeding hybrids in the past, but that has been via reproduction - cloning is not reproduction, but replication. And this is a very different matter. As Boston University ethicist George Annas puts it, "replication of a human being by cloning would radically alter the very definition of a human being by producing the world's first human with a single genetic parent".
However, some have said that cloning is no different than identical twins. Natural cloning does take place in the case of identical twins. Identical twins come from a monozygote, an egg that splits in two. The cytoplasm is identical, as well as the nucleus, making identical twins closer genetically than clones could be, which would have differences in the cytoplasm. But this is a natural process, resulting in two distinct and unique human beings, each with an individual nature (a soul if you will), but with identical genetic makeups. Moreover, children have a genetic independence of their natural parents. They replicate neither their father nor their mother.
Also, as one genetic expert put it, "Just because something happens in nature, such as identical twins, doesn't mean we should try to repeat it in the laboratory. Many people are born with handicaps - a missing limb, or perhaps an inability to reason at an average level - yet it would never be ethical to reproduce these events in the laboratory just because they occur naturally in about one in 50 births."
A clone of a person would be like a much younger identical twin. But environment and upbringing will effect the clone's development. If a Michael Jordan clone did not have the some background as Michael did (a supportive father, etc.) he may not at all turn out to be a megastar in basketball.
With the success of Dolly, and several other cloning successes since then, most scientists now acknowledge that human cloning is not only theoretically possible, but may be just several years away. This raises a number of questions.
While the success of cloning Dolly has been universally acknowledged, it is not so well known that the scientists at Scotland had to go through 276 failed attempts to get to Dolly. So although the technique is in a sense relatively simple, it took a lot of tries to succeed. It had in fact a 0.36 per cent success rate. Any attempts at human cloning (which will be more complex and difficult than sheep cloning) will undoubtedly involve many failed attempts as well. How many embryos will be lost, and how much fetal wastage will occur before we arrive at an acceptable success rate for human cloning (if such a rate is discoverable let alone permissible)? If the success rate of normal fertilization and implantation is around 33 to 50 per cent, and IVF technologies have just a 10 to 20 per cent success rate, what will the success rate of cloning be?
Also, cloning in the past has led to a high amount of mutations and other problems, such as ageing problems and the transmission of rare genetic diseases. Cloned cells have not usually grown to maturity, etc. Clones have also been born abnormally large and die soon after. There are questions about reproductive fertility. How Dolly will progress remains to be seen. And there are questions about excessive cloning depleting the genetic diversity of a population, leaving it susceptible to disease and other disasters.
Indeed, American scientists have found that the creation of 13 calf embyros by the Dolly technique resulted in major genetic defects, with four fetuses dying in the womb, one at birth, two surviving only a short while.
Consider a related issue. Some argue for cloning as a means of dealing with the problem of fertility. Imagine a society that permits only infertile couples to clone themselves. If this is caused by an inherited defect it will only multiply, making infertility an even greater problem. "Infertility will spread like a virus, merely at different rates, and eventually drive off fertility".
In addition, there is the assumption that the enlightened Western scientific community will not allow any Frankenstein's monsters to be unleashed on the community, and that politicians will protect us from going down the road of full human cloning. However, "a number of leading specialists in the reproductive, medical and bioethics industries have already spoken in favor of cloning". The history of science making bad - even evil - choices, is not to be ignored.
Who is a clone? Will it be the donor's to do as he/she pleases? Is the clone just property of the donor, or of the scientific community that brought it into existence? How will knowledge of a clone's beginnings affect the clone? As John Edmonstone has noted: "What benefit is it to clone a human if that person is never able to have their own specific identity? Scientists have no way of knowing the full psychological ramifications on such a person or how they will react if made aware of their beginnings".
Or as another commentator, cited above, has said: "I believe human reproductive cloning is unethical because it would deny a person his or her genetic individuality. One of the fundamental ethical principles of medicine is to respect the autonomy of the individual." Yet the autonomy and rights of the cloned person get off to a bad start from the very beginning. As bioethicist John Fleming has asked: "What of the cloned child and his or her rights to be conceived and born of the conjugal love of his parents? Will such children believe that they are loved unconditionally or only in so far as they live up to the expectations of those who wanted 'gifted' children?"
Many argue that cloning is justified to ease the pain of parents with a dying child. But this reduces the child to an object, a commodity. "Not only does this encourage the parents to produce one child in the image of another, it also encourages all of us to view children as interchangeable commodities, because cloning is so different from human reproduction."
What will become of relationships? Primarily, what is a clone? Is he or she a child or a sibling to the donor? Is the donor a mother, father, guardian, sibling, representative or what? Would the parents of the donor be the clone's actual parents? What will clones do to family relationships and definitions? Same-sex unions, IVP, surrogacy and other attempts to redefine families have already altered the social landscape. Clone relationships will only further unravel the family unit. "Imagine if an infertile couple were to produce a clone of the male partner in order to have a child. This poses some interesting problems. For example, the child/clone would technically be the father's twin - and therefore a brother - and not the father's son, because sons are the product of the union of a man's genetic code with a woman's."
Also, children will certainly not enjoy a father or mother in the normal sense of the world. The family is the natural means - or as some would argue, the means God has chosen - to bring new human beings into the world. From a religious perspective, Robert Orr has put it like this, "God's plan for human reproduction is for the genetic material from a man and a woman to be joined together to form a genetically unique individual. Cloning does not do this. Cloning does not use God's design for reproduction...[Therefore] cloning of humans is contrary to God's design."
From a secular perspective, the concerns remain the same. The creator of Dolly, Prof. Ian Wilmut, expresses these concerns: "My wife and I met at high school. Let's say we couldn't have children and we wanted to make copies of me. The copy of me turns 18. How would my wife react to the copy? Maybe she'd throw the old one out and start with the new one. How would the older person think about the copy? And by now your sensitive 20-year-old could see what he would look like at 55."
University of Chicago Professor Jean Bethke Elshtain conceives of similar scenarios. She wonders what will happen when parents seek to clone a dead or dying child as a replacement: "we say to little Tommy, in effect: 'Sorry to lose you. But Tommy 2 is waiting in the wings.' And what of Tommy 2? What happens when he learns he is the pinch hitter? 'There was an earlier Tommy, much loved, so Mommy and Daddy had a copy made.' But it isn't really Mommy and Daddy - it's the two people who placed the order for him and paid a huge sum. He's their little product; little fabricated Tommy 2, a techno-orphan. And Tommy 1 lies in the grave unmourned, undifferentiated in death; unremembered because he had been copied and his individuality wrenchingly obliterated".
Indeed, how will clone and original relate to each other, and be treated by friends and loved ones? Even parents will have an awkward relationship to the clone. Leon Kass puts it this way: "The new life will constantly be scrutinized in relation to that of the older copy. . . . [T]he child is likely to ever be a curiosity, ever a potential source of deja vu".
Ethicist Nicholas Tonti-Filippini put it this way: "Cloning is asexual reproduction - suitable for worms and amoeba. The origin of a new human being warrants a context of dignified human love that only spouses can provide through their love-making."
The institution of marriage, already straining to the point of breaking, will further be assaulted with cloning. One of the main reasons for marriage in the past was conception and raising of children. Cloning undermines all such rationale for marriage. Moreover, since the new reproductive technologies tend to benefit women more than men, there would presumably be a greater demand for cloning among women. "Cloning would allow them to have children later in life, enabling them to invest more in their market skills earlier. Women while pregnant or taking care of the children would be less dependent on men for support. As a result, there would be fewer marriages..."
A number of social researchers and commentators have argued that one of America's (and the West's) greatest social problems is that of unwed motherhood and illegitimate children. Cloning can only exacerbate this problem. As James Q. Wilson of the University of California, Los Angeles, puts it: "The major threat cloning produces is a further weakening of the two-parent family. Cloning humans, if it can occur at all, cannot be prevented, but cloning unmarried persons will expand the greatest cultural problem our country now faces".
(Some radical feminists also see dangers, but in the other direction. For example, Andrea Dworkin warns that in a "world in which cloning works, only compliant women will live. Cloning is the absolute power over reproduction that men have wanted and have destroyed generations upon generations of women to approximate".)
In addition to such issues, a further matter deserves attention. It has been the position of many homosexuals and lesbians that they should be able to raise their own children, something biologically impossible until recently. With IVF and other new reproductive technologies, such desires are now becoming reality. Cloning simply increases the options. And homosexuals are quite willing to avail themselves of it: "Queer cloning can be viewed as the next logical step in queer people's formation of families of choice". Or as another expressed it, "were cloning to prove safe in the production and rearing of children, I certainly do think gay people ought to have access to what techniques become available".
The phrase in the first quote says it all: "families of choice". The new bio-technologies are certainly unleashing such choice, with the shape of the family becoming less and less recognizable with each new advance. Human cloning can only further contribute to this radical transmutation of the family unit.
How will clones be treated in a whole range of legal/social jurisdictions? For example, what about inheritance rights? Will legislation be enacted speaking of the "right to reproduce"? Will criminal clones use excuses of genetics in their defense? Could a clone who had been deprived of an outstanding brain collect damages from the donors who had conspired to degrade him? Will cloning be the domain only of the rich and famous?
Indeed, we have to question whether it is justifiable to devote a lot of resources to the "development of techniques that are likely to benefit only a rich few". Dr. Tonti-Filippini has said that the genetic information revolution could lead to a genetic underclass: "If people are seen as genetically inferior they will be treated by society as inferior". Moreover, the "genetics of disease thus creates a pressure for normality, and this pressure is intrinsically discriminatory because it amounts to a negative judgment of the abnormal people we see around us".
Other issues arise. Fingerprints, and more recently DNA testing, have helped police track down criminals. With duplicate criminals (same fingerprints, same DNA), this process could get seriously bogged down. Moreover, the cloning of organs and the production of spare parts raises the question of who owns the body tissue, patient consent and how such an industry will be regulated. Countless other questions arise here. Undoubtedly the lawyers will have a field day (and make a bundle) with cloning.
And this raises another issue. Biotechnology is big business. Many groups and industries have a vested interest in seeing human cloning proceed at full pace. There is money to be made. The 'spare parts' industry alone could generate huge incomes. As Andrew Kimbrell puts it, "The ideology of the market has been and continues to be a central operating principle of the human body shop. As the doctrine of mechanism and advances in science and technology transformed the body into machinelike spare parts, so the market "mechanism" provided the ethical basis that allowed for the sale of those part to take place". He mentions the sale of blood and organs, the marketing of reproduction, the contracting of childbearing, the patenting of human genes, etc. as examples.
Are we playing God with cloning? Are there certain things we should not interfere with? Are we trying to make man in man's image? Is immortality the highest good to be sought after by any means? Do the ends justify the means? Or in this case, do the ends justify the genes. Should reproduction be replaced with replication? Do human beings have a right to be reproduced only, or replicated as well? That is, do not children have a right to a mother and a father? Should people (clones) be treated as mere commodities? Should we harvest clones for their body parts? Should human beings be made only to be commercialized? As James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, has put it, "This is a matter too important to be left solely in the hands of the scientists and medical communities".
From a religious perspective, if a clone is a real human being, and human beings are defined not by their genetic makeup, but by their personality and personhood, then they will have a soul and will be made in God's image. Creating clones simply for scientific experimentation or for body parts will violate that image of God in man.
Scientists have recently manufactured headless mice and headless tadpoles at the University of Texas and the University of Bath (England). The only reason for this is for the use of the organs. Recently the world's first cloned pigs were hailed as a potential source of organs for humans. And humans could be next. As Princeton biologist Lee Silver has said, "It would certainly be possible to produce bodies without a forebrain. These human bodies without any semblance of consciousness would not be considered persons, and thus it would be perfectly legal to keep them 'alive' as a future source of organs".
Australian bioethicist Peter Singer agrees, arguing that cloned foetuses are acceptable: "You would have to terminate the process before consciousness occurs, at some time in the last third of pregnancy, or somehow prevent the brain from forming while keeping the rest of the organism going. I don't really have a problem with that." And Dr Carl Wood, of Monash IVF, also sees nothing wrong with embryo cloning, and said that in the future cloning adult cells could possibly allow people to "grow their own spare parts."
Progress in science and technology has not always kept up with ethical progress. Scientists have not always distinguished between what we can do and what we should do. Philosopher David Oderberg says, "Scientists, on the whole, are quick to resist the notion that they may one day try to clone a person, but the track record of biotechnology suggests otherwise, being dictated thus far by the maxim, 'if it can be done, it will be done'." And as society continues to abandon its moral foundations, the prospects can only get worse. As one expert put it, "We're seeing a powerful new technology being introduced into a society that no longer has the tools to decide between right and wrong".
Indeed, many cloning advocates - men such as Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson - have stated that we must, in effect, jettison all religious/philosophical concerns in order not to impede progress in cloning: "Views of human nature rooted in humanity's tribal past ought not to be our primary criterion for making moral decisions about cloning. . . . The potential benefits of cloning may be so immense that it would be a tragedy if ancient theological scruples should lead to a Luddite rejection of cloning".
Fortunately, not all scientists have embraced cloning. Most probably have not. Cloning is "morally repugnant" said the director of the US National Institutes of Health, Dr Harold Varmus: "This makes interesting movies, but poor science and poor ethics".
Poor ethics indeed. And more questions could be asked. Who will control the controllers? That is, who will decide who should be cloned? And for what reasons? What standards will guide those doing the cloning? It seems that incredible power will reside in those who have the ability to make such decisions. As C.S. Lewis warned way back in 1947, "if any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendents what it pleases, all men who live after it are the patients of that power. They are weaker, not stronger. . . . Man's conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men".
The success of Dolly has led to other breakthroughs. For example, just this year US scientists created the first primate clone by splitting the embyro of a rhesus monkey. Human cloning does not seem to be far off. Ian Wilmut, of Dolly fame, has said that hundreds of people have approached him, hoping to be cloned. Dr Richard Seed, a Chicago physicist, wants to create for-profit clinics for human cloning. He has said, "you can't stop science; cloning and reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in becoming one with God". A Swiss cult, the Raelians, is very excited about cloning, and has set up a company in the Bahamas called Clonaid, to set up experiments in human cloning. Big money could be made in human organ harvesting. The options seem endless. Human greed and pride will be happy to take cloning as far as possible. Neither the medical nor scientific community is immune from doing what is wrong. As Harvard ethicist Arthur Dyck reminds us, "Hitler and the Nazi party implemented policies advocated and practiced by scientists, mostly physicians. What the Nazis did was advocated in leading textbooks in use at the time not only in Germany but in many other countries". And it is worth noting that Germany in the 1930s was one of the most advanced, cultured and educated nations on earth.
Undoubtedly there will be many "noble" uses for cloning which will be heard (many already have been heard):
-The continuation of artistic or intellectual giants; the perpetuation of heroes and leaders; to give us more Beethovens, and so on.
-The source of immunologically compatible organs for transplant.
-Options for infertile couples.
-The replacement of a dying child, etc.
However, the above questions and concerns seem to outweigh many of these supposed good uses of human cloning. The dangers seem just too great. Indeed, as one commentator remarked, "It is incredible that most discussions of genetic technology naively neglect its potential usefulness in creating biological weapons, such as, to begin with, antibiotic-resistant plague bacteria, or later, aerosols containing cancer-inducing or mind-scrambling viruses". How many other malignant uses of the new genetic technology might mankind devise?
We have already opened the door too far with the new reproductive technologies. The Brave New World implications of human cloning should be all too apparent. The creation of a master race was attempted once this past century. We do not need to try it again. Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, is reported to be very keen on seeking to clone himself. And young communists in Russia have called for the cloning of Lenin.
In Australia, three states have banned human cloning: Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria. And the Australian Health Ethics Committee has produced guidelines which prohibit cloning human tissue. But even if all states banned it, as many other countries have, doctors and scientists can simply move offshore and continue their work. Moreover, a law against human cloning could be difficult to enforce, as it does not require huge, hard-to-hide equipment. As medical ethicist Ronald Munson has said, "the genie is now out of the bottle... this technology is not in principle policeable".
Ultimately, cloning is an attempt to play God, to take over his divine prerogatives. We are trying to evade death, and to seek utopia on earth. As Charles Krauthammer put it, "Cloning is the technology of narcissism, and nothing satisfies narcissism like immortality". And according to many religious traditions, it appears that God is not too happy with such attempts.
Or as Cal Thomas has said, "The descent of man from his once-exalted position as a unique being created in the image of God to an accident in an impersonal universe has been extraordinarily fast. When moral absolutes are sucked out of society, nothing is left to keep medical technology from cutting, probing, experimenting, even killing, except a vague and sentimental disgust."
(Note: References are available upon request.)