The recent news of the
successful cloning of an adult sheep-in which the
sheep's DNA was inserted
into an unfertilized sheep egg to produce a lamb
with identical DNA-has
generated an outpouring of ethical concerns. These
concerns are not about
Dolly, the now famous sheep, nor even about the
considerable impact
cloning may have on the animal breeding industry, but
rather about the
possibility of cloning humans. For the most part, however,
the ethical concerns being
raised are exaggerated and misplaced, because
they are based on
erroneous views about what genes are and what they can
do. The danger, therefore,
lies not in the power of the technology, but in the
misunderstanding of its
significance.
Producing a clone of a
human being would not amount to creating a "carbon
copy"-an automaton of
the sort familiar from science fiction. It would be
more like producing a
delayed identical twin. And just as identical twins are
two separate
people-biologically, psychologically, morally and legally,
though not genetically-so
a clone is a separate person from his or her
non-contemporaneous twin.
To think otherwise is to embrace a belief in
genetic determinism-the
view that genes determine everything about us,
and that environmental
factors or the random events in human development
are utterly insignificant.
The overwhelming consensus among geneticists is
that genetic determinism
is false.
As geneticists have come
to understand the ways in which genes operate,
they have also become
aware of the myriad ways in which the environment
affects their
"expression." The genetic contribution to the simplest physical
traits, such as height and
hair color, is significantly mediated by
environmental factors. And the
genetic contribution to the traits we value
most deeply, from
intelligence to compassion, is conceded by even the most
enthusiastic genetic
researchers to be limited and indirect. Indeed, we need
only appeal to our
ordinary experience with identical twins-that they are
different people despite
their similarities-to appreciate that genetic
determinism is false.
Furthermore, because of
the extra steps involved, cloning will probably
always be riskier-that is,
less likely to result in a live birth-than in vitro
fertilization (IVF) and
embryo transfer. (It took more than 275 attempts
before the researchers
were able to obtain a successful sheep clone. While
cloning methods may
improve, we should note that even standard IVF
techniques typically have
a success rate of less than 20 percent.) So why
would anyone go to the
trouble of cloning?
There are, of course, a
few reasons people might go to the trouble, and so
it's worth pondering what
they think they might accomplish, and what sort
of ethical quandaries they
might engender. Consider the hypothetical
example of the couple who
wants to replace a child who has died. The
couple doesn't seek to have
another child the ordinary way because they feel
that cloning would enable
them to reproduce, as it were, the lost child. But
the unavoidable truth is
that they would be producing an entirely different
person, a delayed
identical twin of that child. Once they understood that, it
is unlikely they would
persist.
But suppose they were to
persist? Of course we can't deny that possibility.
But a couple so persistent
in refusing to acknowledge the genetic facts is not
likely to be daunted by
ethical considerations or legal restrictions either. If
our fear is that there could be many
couples with that sort of psychology,
then we have a great deal
more than cloning to worry about.
Another disturbing
possibility is the person who wants a clone in order to
have acceptable
"spare parts" in case he or she needs an organ transplant
later in life. But
regardless of the reason that someone has a clone produced,
the result would
nevertheless be a human being with all the rights and
protections that accompany
that status. It truly would be a disaster if the
results of human cloning
were seen as less than fully human. But there is
certainly no moral justification for and
little social danger of that happening;
after all, we do not
accord lesser status to children who have been created
through IVF or embryo
transfer.
There are other possibilities we could spin
out. Suppose a couple wants a
"designer
child"-a clone of Cindy Crawford or Elizabeth Taylor-because
they want a daughter who
will grow up to be as attractive as those women.
Indeed, suppose someone
wants a clone, never mind of whom, simply to
enjoy the notoriety of
having one. We cannot rule out such cases as
impossible. Some people
produce children for all sorts of frivolous or
contemptible reasons. But
we must remember that cloning is not as easy as
going to a video store or
as engaging as the traditional way of making babies.
Given the physical and
emotional burdens that cloning would involve, it is
likely that such cases
would be exceedingly rare.
But if that is so, why
object to a ban on human cloning? What is wrong with
placing a legal barrier in the path of
those with desires perverse enough or
delusions recalcitrant
enough to seek cloning despite its limited potential and
formidable costs? For one
thing, these are just the people that a legal ban
would be least likely to
deter. But more important, a legal barrier might well
make cloning appear more
promising than it is to a much larger group of
people.
If there were significant
interest in applying this technology to human beings,
it would indicate a
failure to educate people that genetic determinism is
profoundly mistaken. Under
those circumstances as well, however, a ban on
human cloning would not
only be ineffective but also most likely
counterproductive.
Ineffective because, as others have pointed out, the
technology does not seem
to require sophisticated and highly visible
laboratory facilities;
cloning could easily go underground. Counterproductive
because a ban might
encourage people to believe that there is a scientific
basis for some of the popular
fears associated with human cloning-that
there is something to
genetic determinism after all.
There is a consensus among
both geneticists and those writing on ethical,
legal and social aspects
of genetic research, that genetic determinism is not
only false, but
pernicious; it invokes memories of pseudo-scientific racist
and eugenic programs
premised on the belief that what we value in people is
entirely dependent on
their genetic endowment or the color of their skin.
Though most members of our
society now eschew racial determinism, our
culture still assumes that
genes contain a person's destiny. It would be
unfortunate if, by
treating cloning as a terribly dangerous technology, we
encouraged this cultural
myth, even as we intrude on the broad freedom our
society grants people
regarding reproduction.
We should remember that
most of us believe people should be allowed to
decide with whom to
reproduce, when to reproduce and how many children
they should have. We do
not criticize a woman who takes a fertility drug so
that she can influence
when she has children-or even how many. Why,
then, would we object if a
woman decides to give birth to a child who is, in
effect, a
non-contemporaneous identical twin of someone else?
By arguing against a ban,
I am not claiming that there are no serious ethical
concerns to the
manipulation of human genes. Indeed there are. For
example, if it turned out
that certain desirable traits regarding intellectual
abilities or character
could be realized through the manipulation of human
genes, which of these
enhancements, if any, should be available? But such
questions are about
genetic engineering, which is a different issue than
cloning. Cloning is a
crude method of trait selection: It simply takes a
pre-existing, unengineered
genetic combination of traits and replicates it.
I do not wish to dismiss
the ethical concerns people have raised regarding
the broad range of
assisted reproductive technologies. But we should
acknowledge that those
concerns will not be resolved by any determination
we make regarding the
specific acceptability of cloning.
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