Human Cloning

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Human Cloning

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• Self, Society, and Technology
• Scot D. Yoder

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Overview

• Types of human cloning
• Cloning and stem cell research
• Cloning for human reproduction

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Types of cloning

• Reproductive vs. therapeutic cloning
• Twinning and delayed twinning

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Reproductive vs. therapeutic cloning

• Reproductive
• cloning a human being
• a new form of human reproduction
• Therapeutic
• human cloning
• a way of creating embryos for fetal tissue and
  stem cell research

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Twinning

• An embryo is split resulting in two genetically
  identical embryos
• Primary use is for therapeutic cloning

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Delayed twinning

• Genetic material from a fully developed human is
  used to create an offspring.
• Current technology employs somatic cell nuclear
  transfer (SCNT).

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Somatic cell nuclear transfer
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A brief history of the stem cell controversy

• Fetal tissue research
• stem cell research
• cloning and stem cells

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Fetal tissue research

• Mid 80s Fetal tissue began to show promise in
  treatment of certain diseases -- e.g.,
  Parkinsons.

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Fetal tissue research

• 1988 DHHS placed a moratorium on the use of
  human fetal tissue for transplant and the use of
  federal funds for research using tissue from
  aborted fetuses.

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Fetal tissue research

• 1989 NIH issued statement that it was
  acceptable to use tissue from spontaneously
  aborted fetuses or ectopic pregnancies.
• 1992 Bush authorized creation of five tissue
  banks.

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Fetal tissue research

• January 1993 Clinton lifted moratorium.
• October 1993 Congress terminated funding for
  support of research and transplantation.

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From tissue to embryos

• 1994 Human Embryo Research Panel recommended
  that federal funding be approved for research
  involving human embryos created for experimental
  use.
• The embryo could not be more than 14 days old.
• Clinton rejected the proposal.
• 1995 Law passed prohibiting use of federal
  funds to support research in which a human embryo
  is destroyed.

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Embryos and stem cells

• 1998 Two researchers announced that they had
  succeeded in isolating and culturing human
  embryonic stem cells
• 2001 Bush enacts policy on stem cell research
• Allows research on the existing stem cell lines
• Prohibits using federal funds to acquire new stem
  cells through the destruction of embryos.

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Stem cells

• Stem cells can be harvested from both embryos and
  adults.
• Embryonic stem cells are thought to be more
  pluripotent.

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Stem cell cultivation
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Treatment possibilities

• Regenerative medicine
• Parkinsons
• Diabetes
• Spinal cord injuries

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Sources of embryonic stem cells

• Frozen embryos
• Aborted fetuses
• Embryos created through human cloning
• Solves the problem of immunological rejection

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Key questions

• Does the embryo have moral standing?
• If not, is there any reason to respect it and
  give it protection?

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Brief history of reproductive cloning

• In 1996 Dolly was born using SCNT

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Brief history of reproductive cloning

• In 1997 the National Bioethics Advisory Council
  recommended
• A moratorium on using federal funds to support
  attempts to create a child by SCNT.
• Voluntary moratorium on the part of private
  researchers.
• Legislation prohibiting attempts to create a
  child through SCNT

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Brief history of reproductive cloning

• In 2001 Researchers at Advanced Cell Technologies
  reported that they had successfully created a
  human embryo through cloning.

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Brief history of reproductive cloning

• In 2003 Clonaid reported (unverified) that they
  had produced a live birth through cloning.

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Two types of moral arguments

• Two general types of arguments are used for and
  against reproductive cloning.
• Rights-based arguments
• Appeal to fundamental human rights implicated by
  human cloning.
• Goal-based arguments (consequentialist)
• Appeals to the benefits or harms of human cloning.

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Rights-based arguments for

• The right to procreative freedom
• the right to select the means of reproduction
• the right to determine what kind of children to
  have
• The right to scientific freedom
• based on First Amendment right to free speech

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Goal-based arguments for

• Medical
• A new means to relieve infertility.
• Allow couples to avoid transmitting genetically
  inherited diseases.
• Allow people to obtain needed organs or tissues
  for transplantation.

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Goal-based arguments for

• Non-medical
• Enable individuals to clone someone who had
  special meaning to them.
• Enable the duplication of individuals with great
  talent, genius, character, etc.
• To achieve immortality (e.g., the Raelians).

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Rights-based arguments against

• It would violate ones right to have a unique
  identity.
• It would violate ones right to have an open
  future (to be ignorant of ones future).

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Goal-based arguments against

• Harms to the clone
• Psychological distress and harm
• Physical risks
• Harm to society
• Diminish worth of individuals and respect for
  human life
• Divert resources from other more important social
  and medical needs
• Reduce diversity of the human gene pool

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Leon Kass on cloning

• In 2001 Leon Kass was appointed by President Bush
  to head the National Bioethcis Advisory Council.
• The repugnance of cloning
• Arguments against cloning
• Cloning and the biotech project

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The repugnance of cloning

• We have, in general, been morally desensitized,
  so that we now accept things we shouldnt.
• The theme of individual procreative liberty
  distorts what is unique and important about human
  reproduction.
• We have an intuitive repugnance to cloning -- we
  should trust and investigate that intuition.

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Kass on repugnance
We are repelled by the prospect of cloning human
beings not because of the strangeness or novelty
of the undertaking, but because we intuit and
feel, immediately and without argument, the
violation of things that we rightfully hold dear.
Repugnance, here as elsewhere, revolts against
the excesses of human willfulness, warning us not
to transgress what is unspeakably profound. --
Kass, The Wisdom of Repugnance
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Kass arguments

• Cloning threatens identity and individuality.
• Includes social identity and kinship ties
• Cloning transforms procreation into the
  manufacture or production of human children.
• Cloning represents a form of despotism over
  children and a perversion of parenthood.

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Kass on the biotech project

• For Kass, it is important to look at human
  cloning in the context of the larger biotech
  project.

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The biotech project

• Utopian visions based on the belief that science
  and technology will help us overcome nature.
• Beyond healing to changing human nature.
• Reproductive and genetic technologies and
  psychopharmacology.
• The result is a dehumanized, or post-human
  future like that depicted in Huxleys Brave New
  World.

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Why difficult to control?

• The belief that technological progress is
  inevitable if it can be done, it will be done.
• Cultural emphasis on individual freedom
• The biomedical enterprise is justified on
  humanitarian grounds
• A culture of ethical relativism
• The economic interest in biotech

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What will help us?

• We have lost our innocence.
• Freedom of inquiry vs. freedom of action
• Our willingness to limit biomedical science in
  the name of human freedom and dignity.
• Resistance to the commodification of human life.
• Most Americans are still revolted by a
  post-human future.