In the United States there is a bill proposed to ban human cloning. It will not become a law unless it passes in the Senate in autumn. This bill would make this type of research a criminal offense with a maximum sentence of ten years in jail and up to a one million dollar fine (Tanne, 1).
How Cloning Can Be Used
The ability to clone humans raises endless scientific possibilities. As with all dramatic scientific breakthroughs, there is potential to do many good things as well as the potential to abuse the knowledge. Take nuclear power for example. This form of generating power is essential to the world as a power source. Without it the world could not function as it does now. As history shows, this knowledge has been used to create nuclear weapons as well as power plants. Although the potential is there to develop even more devastating weapons of mass destruction, nuclear research is still conducted making nuclear power safer and more efficient and increasing the well being of anyone who uses it as a resource. This is the problem that human cloning raises. The benefits of this research would be tremendous. Untold numbers of diseases could be treated. Problems associated with organ transplantation could be annihilated. Genetic birth defects could also be eliminated. On the other hand, its abuse could have tremendous effects on individualism, religion, and morality. It is a risk the world must take. If cloning is only conducted in certain ways it could be utilized in ways that would benefit the world tremendously.
The following procedures rely on cells only present in early stages of embryonic development. These stem cells are responsible for the generation of all the body’s tissues. It is the goal of these procedures, with the use of human cloning, to recreate these tissue-generating cells. These cells have multiple medical uses.
The first and most obvious of these potential procedures involves harvesting organs. Jeffery Platts reports, “So great is the demand [for organs] that as few as 5% of the organs needed in the United States ever become available”(Savulescu, 3). And every year this problem gets worse. Furthermore, when a transplant takes place the body rejects the new organ and immunosuppressive therapy is required which has serious negative side effects. Cloning would theoretically eliminate all of these problems. If an organ is grown by cloning, it will have the same DNA as the person that it was taken from, presumably the recipient. This effectively eliminates the body’s rejection to the new organ because it is essentially the same as the old one and the need for immunosuppressants. This also eliminates the shortage of donor organs because organs can be cultured as needed. This would be much more reliable than the current method of attaining donor organs. This involves waiting until someone who has a compatible organ, consents to its removal, and then dies.
Human cloning can also be used as a source of stem cells. These cells can be used to treat diseases such as leukemia or diabetes. This works by inserting a concentration of these multipotent cells in a diseased area. Take leukemia for example. This disease is caused by defective bone marrow creating abnormal amounts of white blood cells. If healthy multipotent bone marrow cells are then introduced into this area there is the potential for healthy bone morrow to develop, curing the disease (Wilson, 5). Where does human cloning come in? Cloning is involved in the process that creates these cells.
Much like the organ-donning scenario, the recipient must not reject these stem cells. This could theoretically be accomplished by creating an embryo from recipient DNA. These multipotent cells could then be removed from the embryo in the early stages of cell differentiation and placed into the recipient, eliminating all rejection reactions.
Cloning techniques could also be combined with many other research techniques and medical procedures to make them more effective. One example of this is germ line gene therapy. This new medical technique involves correcting negative recessive traits in early embryonic development. Essentially what takes places is the diseased gene is removed and replaced with a healthy one. Because the embryo is in the early stages of development, the resulting offspring will be born with this new gene in most, if not all of its cells, thereby circumventing the disease. This research is limited however by the small number of cells and their rapid loss of totipotency, the ability to change into other forms of tissues. Human cloning could aid this process by allowing researchers to amass large amounts of genetically identical embryos. This constant genome gives researchers a chance to test several different methods on the same embryo, with the same defect. Christine Wilgoos further speculates, “ one of the resulting nuclei could be transferred into an egg cell… this would create a new embryo, increasing success rates of germ line gene therapy” (3).
As discussed before, this amazing scientific technology has potential to be detrimental to society. Here is cloning’s nuclear bomb- Because these cloning procedures only require the nucleus from any one haploid it has the ability to be used in ways which challenge all human morality, religion, and ethics. Potentially humans can be created and recreated on demand. If George Washington’s DNA could be obtained, he could be brought back to life, so could Hitler, Napoleon or Ganges Khan. Children who die at birth or in an accident could be placed, alive, back into their mother’s arms. Mothers, instead of giving birth to normal babies, could reproduce themselves! The possibilities are endless and some even unimaginable.
There is also the potential to create a custom baby. As knowledge of the human genome increases, it will eventually be possible to modify DNA and possibly build it to one’s desire. If one cell can be created with this desired genetic makeup, its nucleus can be placed in an enucleated egg cell. In other words, it is cloned. This new embryo can then be placed inside the mother to mature. Nine months later her ideal baby is born. One must remember that genes control everything. When ideal is said describing the baby it not only means that every physical trait is hand picked, but so are that babies emotional trends. Genetics controls IQ potential and tendencies towards, anger, aggression, and every natural emotion human beings feel.
These abilities, although fun to speculate, conflict with what makes humans human and strikes at the cords of individualism Christine Wilgoos reveals his fears,
Widespread use of these techniques will lead to parents choosing babies with certain physical or intellectual characteristics. Even more frightening is the possibility that society as a whole will attempt to create a “superior” human race by eliminating “undesirable” traits (5).
Furthermore these procedures eliminate the need for the current, and much less scientific form of reproduction. Eliminating the necessity for individuals to seek suitable mates draws into question marriage, love, and even the basic concept of a child having two parents.
These cloning options do not contribute to medicine. They do nothing to contribute to the curing of defect or disease. While engineering a baby may prevent all genetic diseases, it creation is artificial. It is the same way with propagating existing DNA; the result is just an imitation. It will have no recollection of who they were before, just their looks and potential. Procedures involving tissue growth, organ culturing, and genetic screening try to preserve what was conceived naturally, as humans have done since they came into existence. It is these technologies, which contribute to improving life that has already been made, that should be utilized and researched. The potential is there to remove much hardship and suffering from the everyday lives of future generations while maintaining genetic diversity.
Opposition
Objection to the cloning of humans comes from, what Sarah Franklin describes as, “using humans as a means” (4) Humans are created through these processes and then they are destroyed. Although this is true, these embryos are destroyed early in their development, many times before the cells are even differentiated. At this point in human development there is no brain, no nerves, hence no thought and no feeling. The embryo is just a ball of cells. If these cloned embryos could be created with the intent to destroy them at a certain stage of development, then they should be legal to use. No conscience human life is created. Janice Tanne agrees with this position stating, “When a certain state of conscience develops… This is where the moral question comes in.”(7) A single blade of grass is more differentiated than an embryo in these early stages.
Others argue that human cloning technology will have a negative effect on the gene pool. An anonymous article in the Catholic Medical Journal declares, “It destroys the dignity of human nature by treating the human person as a material commodity to be manipulated by whim and fancy” (1). This animosity extends even to procedures which could cure genetic birth defects. This is quite contradictory however. These genetic diseases are treated for people’s entire lives. These people pay doctors to help them feel better. They buy pharmaceuticals to relieve pain. It is obviously realized by humans as a whole that these diseases are bad. Furthermore, humans then strive to cure the person and if not cure them make them as close to an unaffected human as possible. Why not then just remove the defect at conception.
It seems the largest opposition to human cloning involves the manipulation of traits on a large scale. Tissue transplants, organ culturing, and germ dine therapy are just used to correct obvious faults before birth. These defects, if not corrected at conception, would attempt to be cured after birth. These procedures would not involve the maturation of babies to a conscience level or the creation of an “imitation” human. If human cloning is regulated it can be combined with many other types of research to proliferate healthy, genetically diverse, human life.
