Human cloning

Human cloning: the most controversial debate of the decade.

Human somatic cell nuclear transfer, otherwise known (somewhat inaccurately) as creating an embryo by “cloning,” involves:

·         The starvation and subsequent implantation of DNA from specialized, non-sexual cells of one organism (e.g., cells specialized to make that organism’s hair or milk) into an egg whose DNA nucleus has been removed.

·         The resulting egg and nucleus are shocked or chemically treated so that the egg begins to behave as though fertilization has occurred, resulting in the beginning of embryonic development of a second organism containing the entire genetic code of the first organism.

Mammalian cloning, through this nuclear transfer process, has resulted in the birth of hundreds of organisms to date. However, significantly more nuclear transfer generated embryos fail during pregnancy than would fail in sexual reproduction, and a substantial majority of cloned animals who have survived to birth have had some significant birth defect.Reproduction, or perhaps more accurately, replication of an organism’s DNA identity does not normally occur in mammals, with the exception of twinning, which always results in the simultaneous birth of siblings. Only plants reproduce through replication from one generation to another. The prospect of such replication for humans has resulted in the most controversial debate about reproduction ever to be taken up in western civilization.

It’s an answer to infertility, claim supporters.

Cloning Issues

In addition to the obvious risks to the first child, noted below, those who oppose human cloning point to the repugnance of a style of reproduction with such profound potential for vanity, arguing that the freedom of children and nature of the family are in danger.

Proponents of cloning suggested it might serve as a new, unusual but perhaps efficacious treatment for infertility, enabling those unable to pass genes to future generations to do so in a way that is at least analogous to the familial linkage of twins.

Perhaps the most urgent ethical, legal and social issues about cloning arise in the context and process that may lead to the birth of a first human clone. This is so because, as has been pointed out by scholars and politicians, early human experiments are likely to result in a number of clinical failures and lead to miscarriage, the necessity of dozens or even hundreds of abortions, or births of massively deformed offspring. Recent study of mammalian cloning also suggests that a number of defects often created in the reprogramming of the egg do not manifest themselves until later in the life of the resulting clone, so that mature clones have often undergone spectacular, unforeseen deaths.

Failure, miscarriage, or deformed offspring likely in early experiments.Some defects may not be revealed until a clone is mature.

The dangers for early prospective clones are controversial and difficult to manage because

·         in part, one is attempting to protect a future potential person against harms that might be inflicted by their very existence, and

·         in part because societies around the world have indicated that they believe that the early cloning experiments will breach a natural barrier that is moral in character, taking humans into a realm of self-engineering that vastly exceeds any prior experiments with new reproductive technology.

Can the law prevent the birth of a clone when it’s our right to have children?

Laws that would prevent the birth of a first clone are difficult because they traverse complex jurisprudential ground: protecting an as-yet nonexistent life against reproductive dangers, in a western world that, in statutory and case law at least, favors reproductive autonomy.

But the dangers for the first clone pale in comparison to the ethical issues that will arise should cloning succeed in producing a healthy child, and become part of the repertoire of new reproductive technologies presently offered to those with sufficient funds.

Is a cloned embryo the same as a conceived embryo?

·         The creation of Dolly the sheep at Roslyn, Scotland labs of biotechnology company PPL Therapeutics (and not-for-profit Roslyn Institute) did not involve any of the hallmarks of what is known socially, religiously, and scientifically, as conception: the fusion of egg and sperm and the adhesion of the thus fertilized egg to the wall of the uterus.⁵

·         The genetic and cellular material that led to Dolly indeed might not even qualify in traditional terms as an embryo, in that mammalian embryos are scientifically defined in part by how they come into being. It is quite difficult to divine “what is in the dish” where a “clone” is being created, a problem that plagues all those who would define and regulate the creation and research on embryonic progenitors of a clone.

Does a clone have parents, autonomy, or even a soul?

By analogy, many have speculated as to whether:

·         a human clone lacks traits necessary for true independence from “parent” progenitors

·         whether a clone is entitled by contrast to feel that a progenitor (genetically its monozygotic twin) is an appropriate parent

·         and many in the general public in western nations identified the most important problem of cloning as whether a clone would have a soul.

How a clone is to be defined, or rather how difficult is the task of finding a way of understanding human cloning in terms from traditional language and contemporary institutions of science and parenting, has proven to be a most formidable challenge.

In moral terms, the questions to be asked about cloning, were it shown to be safe and effective, are:

·         Whether and how does cloning relate to other kinds of families?

·         What sorts of boundaries of parenthood and social responsibility are challenged by cloning?

What is parenthood or society in a world that includes clones?

Can cloned children choose their own destiny?

Legal scholars have argued that cloning may violate, for example, a child’s “right to an open future.” A child born as a genetic copy of another may feel undue pressure to become like or different from its progenitor. Yet a right to an open future is difficult to validate by common law or analogy to ethical analysis about parenthood. What is parenthood, after all, but the teaching of values and knowledge to children in an act of stewardship? Perhaps children do not ever have fully open futures. Failing an absolute standard, society will have to find ways to reconcile differences among the many kinds and degrees of parental control and enhancement of children. While it is tempting to describe cloning as either a radical new form of parenting or as twinning, either analysis fails to take account of the need for new ways to integrate the problem of cloning into social institutions before it becomes an accepted form of reproductive medicine.

If humans “make” babies rather than “have” babies, are they playing God?

Conclusion

Cloning offers remarkable insight into the power of creation that humanity has taken into its fold. One theological analysis holds that humans are co-creators with God; perhaps it is more accurate to say that humans are moving ever closer to a posture of making babies, rather than having babies. Cloning represents a remarkable test of human restraint, wisdom and institutional development, one that will in many ways identify the moral features of 21st century biotechnology.

I.           

GENES

Genes are strings of chemicals that help create

the proteins that make up your body. Genes are

found in long coiled chains called chromosomes.

They are located in the nuclei of the cells in your

body:

II. "THREE WAYS TO MAKE AN EMBRYO"

  In sexual reproduction a child gets half its genes from its

mother (in her egg) and half from its father (in his sperm):

  Cloning is an asexual form of reproduction.

All the child's genes would come from a body

cell of a single individual:

Who is the clonal child's genetic mother or father?

As we understand those terms, a clonal child wouldn't have a genetic mother or father, it would have a single 'nuclear donor.'

 

If a man cloned himself, would the child be that man's son or his twin brother? It would be neither, it would be a new category of  biological relationship: his clone.

III. STEM CELLS

  Stem cells are primordial cells capable of  developing into a variety of  types of  cells. Some stem cells are found in the adult body. Others are found in very early embryos. These stem cells can be cultured in petri dishes and potentially used to generate "therapeutic tissues" or "spare organs":

Many people support the use of stem cells of both types for such therapeutic purposes. Many others support the use of adult stem cells for this purpose but oppose the use of embryonic stem cells, because they oppose the destruction or manipulation of  human embryos.

IV. HUMAN CLONING: A CRITICAL DISTINCTION BETWEEN TWO APPLICATIONS

1. Reproductive cloning uses the cloning procedure to produce a clonal embryo which is implanted in a woman's womb with intent to create a fully formed living child--a clone-as shown in diagram 3 above..

2. Therapeutic cloning uses the cloning procedure to produce a clonal embryo, but instead of being implanted in a womb and brought to term it is used to generate stem cells, as shown in diagram 4 above.

The purpose of using clonal embryos to generate stem cells is to allow creation of tissues or organs that the clonal donor can use without having these tissues or organs rejected by their body's immune system. Most people oppose reproductive cloning. Some people oppose reproductive cloning but support therapeutic cloning. Others oppose therapeutic cloning as well as reproductive cloning, either because they are opposed to the destruction of embryos as a matter of principle, or because they feel the acceptance of therapeutic cloning will set us on a slippery slope to thea cceptance of reproductive cloning and human genetic manipulation.

It is possible to support stem cell research and still oppose research involving therapeutic cloning.

The Benefits of Human Cloning by Simon Smith

There are many ways in which in which human cloning is expected to benefit mankind.  Below is a list that is far from complete.

• Dr. Richard Seed, one of the leading proponents of human cloning technology, suggests that it may someday be possible to reverse the aging process because of what we learn from cloning.
• Human cloning technology could be used to reverse heart attacks.  Scientists believe that they may be able to treat heart attack victims by cloning their healthy heart cells and injecting them into the areas of the heart that have been damaged.  Heart disease is the number one killer in the United States and several other industrialized countries.
• There has been a breakthrough with human stem cells.  Embryonic stem cells can be grown to produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged ones.  Skin for burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, spinal cord cells for quadriplegics and paraplegics, hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys could be produced.  By combining this technology with human cloning technology it may be possible to produce needed tissue for suffering people that will be free of rejection by their immune systems.  Conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart failure, degenerative joint disease, and other problems may be made curable if human cloning and its technology are not banned.
• Infertility.  With cloning, infertile couples could have children.  Despite getting a fair amount of publicity in the news current treatments for infertility, in terms of percentages, are not very successful.  One estimate is that current infertility treatments are less than 10 percent successful.  Couples go through physically and emotionally painful procedures for a small chance of having children.  Many couples run out of time and money without successfully having children.  Human cloning could make it possible for many more infertile couples to have children than ever before possible.
• Plastic, reconstructive, and cosmetic surgery.  Because of human cloning and its technology the days of silicone breast implants and other cosmetic procedures that may cause immune disease should soon be over. With the new technology, instead of using materials foreign to the body for such procedures, doctors will be able to manufacture bone, fat, connective tissue, or cartilage that matches the patients tissues exactly.  Anyone will able to have their appearance altered to their satisfaction without the leaking of silicone gel into their bodies or the other problems that occur with present day plastic surgery. Victims of terrible accidents that deform the face should now be able to have their features repaired with new, safer, technology. Limbs for amputees may be able to be regenerated.
• Breast implants.  Most people are aware of the breast implant fiasco in which hundreds of thousands of women received silicone breast implants for cosmetic reasons.  Many came to believe that the implants were making them ill with diseases of their immune systems.  With human cloning and its technology breast augmentation and other forms of cosmetic surgery could be done with implants that would not be any different from the person's normal tissues.
• Defective genes.  The average person carries 8 defective genes inside them.  These defective genes allow people to become sick when they would otherwise remain healthy.  With human cloning and its technology it may be possible to ensure that we no longer suffer because of our defective genes.
• Down's syndrome. Those women at high risk for Down's syndrome can avoid that risk by cloning.
• Tay-Sachs disease. This is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder could be prevented by using cloning to ensure that a child does not express the gene for the disorder
• Liver failure. We may be able to clone livers for liver transplants
• Kidney failure. We may be able to clone kidneys for kidney transplants
• Leukemia.  We should be able to clone the bone marrow for children and adults suffering from leukemia.  This is expected to be one of the first benefits to come from cloning technology.
• Cancer.  We may learn how to switch cells on and off through cloning and thus be able to cure cancer.  Scientists still do not know exactly how cells differentiate into specific kinds of tissue, nor to they understand why cancerous cells lose their differentiation.  Cloning, at long last, may be the key to understanding differentiation and cancer.
• Cystic fibrosis.  We may be able to produce effective genetic therapy against cystic fibrosis.  Ian Wilmut and colleagues are already working on this problem.
• Spinal cord injury. We may learn to grow nerves or the spinal cord back again when they are injured.  Quadriplegics might be able to get out of their wheelchairs and walk again.  Christopher Reeves, the man who played Superman, might be able to walk again.
• Testing for genetic disease.  Cloning technology can be used to test for and perhaps cure genetic diseases.

The above list only scratches the surface of what human cloning technology can do for mankind.  The suffering that can be relieved is staggering.  This new technology heralds a new era of unparalleled advancement in medicine if people will release their fears and let the benefits begin.  Why should another child die from leukemia when if the technology is allowed we should be able to cure it in a few years time?

From various e-mail sent to the Human Cloning Foundation, it is clear that many people would support human cloning in the following situations:

1) A couple has one child then they become infertile and cannot have more children.  Cloning would enable such a couple to have a second child, perhaps a younger twin of the child they already have.

2) A child is lost soon after birth to a tragic accident.  Many parents have written the HCF after losing a baby in a fire, car accident, or other unavoidable disaster.  These grief stricken parents often say that they would like to have their perfect baby back.  Human cloning would allow such parents to have a twin of their lost baby, but it would be like other twins, a unique individual and not a carbon copy of the child that was lost under heartbreaking circumstances.

3) A woman who through some medical emergency ended up having a hysterectomy before being married or having children. Such women have been stripped of their ability to have children. These women need a surrogate mother to have a child of their own DNA, which can be done either by human cloning or by in vitro fertilization.

4) A boy graduates from high school at age 18. He goes to a pool party to celebrate. He confuses the deep end and shallow end and dives head first into the pool, breaking his neck and becoming a quadriplegic. At age 19 he has his first urinary tract infection because of an indwelling urinary catheter and continues to suffer from them the rest of his life. At age 20 he comes down with herpes zoster of the trigeminal nerve. He suffers chronic unbearable pain. At age 21 he inherits a 10 million dollar trust fund. He never marries or has children. At age 40 after hearing about Dolly being a clone, he changes his will and has his DNA stored for future human cloning. His future mother will be awarded one million dollars to have him and raise him. His DNA clone will inherit a trust fund. He leaves five million to spinal cord research. He dies feeling that although he was robbed of normal life, his twin/clone will lead a better life.

5) Two parents have a baby boy. Unfortunately the baby has muscular dystrophy. They have another child and it's another boy with muscular dystrophy. They decide not to have any more children. Each boy has over 20 operations as doctors attempt to keep them healthy and mobile. Both boys die as teenagers. The childless parents donate their estate to curing muscular dystrophy and to having their boys cloned when medical science advances enough so that their DNA can live again, but free of muscular dystrophy.

 

Reference

http://www.arhp.org/uploadDocs/cloning.pdf#search=%22human%20cloning%22

Reference this page as: Human Cloning Foundation. "The Benefits of Human Cloning." Internet http://www.humancloning.org/benefits.htm, 1998. This page can be plagiarized, copied, or redistributed freely in order to support human cloning and its technology.