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Human Cloning, By Any Name, Should Be Banned{Printed in The Columbus Dispatch, November 27, 2001, p. A11} After Dolly the sheep was cloned, many people voiced concern about attempting the procedure with humans. But that hasn't stopped some scientists. Researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts have announced the cloning of human embryos. They urged us not to worry, though, claiming this is not human cloning. They "only" cloned embryos. Long before these come to term, they will be destroyed as part of the push to develop therapies from stem-cell research. They call this procedure therapeutic cloning, to distinguish it from reproductive cloning, which would produce cloned babies. The moral problems with cloning, these researchers claim, do not apply to therapeutic cloning. These terms represent an attempt to manipulate language to get around the almost universal abhorrence of human cloning. Explaining the procedures involved will show that therapeutic cloning is, first and foremost, cloning. Its use on humans is, therefore, human cloning. The procedure used to produce Dolly, and with these human cells, is called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT. Let's say Johnny and Mary want to produce a clone. Mary's eggs and Johnny's sperm contain only half of their genetic material, but all their other cells contain a complete copy of their genes. These cells are called somatic cells, and they store their genetic material in each cell's nucleus. In SCNT, researchers would remove the nucleus from some of Mary's eggs and replace it with a nucleus from Johnny's somatic cells. The resulting cells are zapped with electricity, and the hope is that some of them will grow and develop just like any other fertilized egg. These embryos, though, would have exactly the same genetic make-up as Johnny; they would be clones of Johnny. At this point, the cloning procedure is over. A cloned embryo will either grow and develop and come to term, or he will die from natural or humanly inflicted causes. Whether Johnny and Mary are justified in killing their clone or allowing him to come to term is a second ethical question they must address. Whatever their answer, it does not justify their cloning Johnny in the first place. Therapeutic cloning, then, is a disingenuous term, designed to distract people from the fact that SCNT applied to human cells, for whatever reason, is human cloning. Leon Kass, head of the presidential commission on stem cell research, has written that this term is used to "obscure the fact that the clone will be 'treated' only to exploitation and destruction, and that any potential future beneficiaries and any future 'therapies' are at this point purely hypothetical." Researchers claim they need therapeutic cloning to realize the benefits of stem-cell research. If Johnny had a disease that stem cells might someday cure, his body could reject another person's stem cells, just as transplanted organs can be rejected. To avoid this, Johnny's clone would be sacrificed to produce stem cells that are completely compatible with his body. Thus, the ethics of stem cell research are intricately interwoven with human cloning. But the hopes and promises of therapeutic cloning far outdistance the reality. Ian Wilmut, the principal researcher involved with Dolly, declared that "attempts to clone human beings . . . are dangerous and irresponsible." He should know. Although Dolly remains healthy, another cloned sheep, born shortly after Dolly, was put down because of birth defects. She died without publicity, or a cute name. Animal cloning has an abysmally low success rate. Many clones are born with horrible deformities, and 95 percent to 99 percent of cloned embryos die before birth. Even mothers are at risk. Cows have died during pregnancy because the cloned calves grew excessively large within the womb. And no one knows whether abnormalities are transmitted to stem cells derived from cloned embryos. The House of Representatives passed the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001 to ban all cloning, whether therapeutic or reproductive. It hasn't become law because the Senate didn't take up the bill. Our society needs to ban human cloning to prevent the creation and destruction of human life, whether embryonic or more advanced. Cloning dehumanizes humans, treating them like commodities to be manufactured and discarded as willed. This research promotes the utilitarian ethic that some members of the species can be used and destroyed if other members believe they have enough to gain. This ethic has caused untold pain and suffering throughout human history. We can prevent its progress by taking a strong stand against any form of human cloning. Dónal P. O'Mathúna, Ph.D. is Professor of Bioethics & Chemistry at Mount Carmel College of Nursing in Columbus, Ohio and a Fellow of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity in Chicago. |
