Cloning First thing in course: distinguishing factual and - PDF document

Cloning Essays • Biggest area in need of improvement: focus on ethical issues, not factual. Cloning • First thing in course: distinguishing factual and normative claims. • Factual (do not focus on) – What the law says now (doesn’t make it right) – What people want or will agree to – Facts may be relevant and worth mentioning, but do not make them the main focus. Why not? What Is Cloning? How Is It Done? The nuclear material (containing the DNA) of any cell from a person to be cloned, the A form of reproduction in which offspring donor, is put into an oocyte (egg) which result not from chance union of egg and has had its nuclear removed. sperm but from deliberate replication of the genetic makeup of another person. So the result is genetically virtually identical to the donor. Result is a cloned human embryo , which This and other definitions modified from The President’s Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry , 2002. may or may not be implanted in a <www.bioethics.gov/reports/cloningreport/fullreport> woman’s woman to develop into a child. Kinds of Cloning The Current Debate • Cloning-to-produce-children (“reproductive • “Cloning” discussed in Munson is cloning-to- cloning”): The cloned human embryo is formed produce-children. for the purpose of implanting in a woman’s • “Cloning-for-biomedical-research” is a subject of womb to initiate pregnancy. intense debate now in the U.S. Congress • Cloning-for-biomedical-research (“therapeutic • Congress seems ready to pass a ban on cloning”): The cloned human embryo is used for cloning-to-produce-children; House has also research or to extract stem cells for purpose of passed ban on cloning-for-biomedical research; gaining knowledge and developing cures for awaits action in Senate. human diseases. Medical Ethics 1

Cloning Cloning-to Produce Children: Arguments for Cloning Issues to Consider • People may legtimately want cloning in some • Arguments in favor of cloning situations • Arguments against cloning – Infertile couple – Couple who are carriers of genetic defect. • How much weight should we give to – Cloning avoids need to involve third party or take risk with prenatal testing and possible abortion. popular “repugnance”? – Child needs bone marrow transplant. Can create clone as organ donor • Even if arguments against the (ethical) – “Duplicate” a child who dies desirability of cloning are stronger, are • We could duplicate people with great talent. they strong enough to ban the practice ? • Educational benefits • Are they strong enough to ban research ? Strong: Argument for Cloning Strong: Objections Not Sound • Objection that clone would be expected to be a certain • Reasons procreative freedom valued in way based on a misunderstanding of genetics usual cases also apply to cloning • Any harm to child must be balanced against benefits to child; it is given a life it would not otherwise have – Participation in creation of a person • Rights: there is no right to “unique genetic heritage” • If clone of man, woman could still carry child • No reason to think producing a clone implies lack of (Kantian) “respect for persons” • If clone of woman, man still would be social father – Child can be respected as end or used a means regardless of • (Not in Strong) Some of same arguments could how it is created apply to homosexual couple • Objection that child is being “manufactured” not sound • “Teleological world views have been displaced by our – Affirmation of mutual love of a couple scientific understanding of the world.” Kass’s Repugance Repugnance • Beyond rational argument, we learn from • The wrongness and horror of some things repugnance: “shallow are those who have are beyond rational articulation; e.g., forgotten how to shudder.” father-daughter incest, rape • Macklin: “Intuition has never been a reliable epistemological method, especially since people • “Shallow are the souls that have forgotten notoriously disagree in their moral intuitions…If how to shudder”: a virtue ethics argument objections to cloning can identify no greater harm that a supposed affront to the dignity of the human species, that is a flimsy basis on which to erect barriers to scientific research and its applications.” (NBAC in Munson, p. 719) Medical Ethics 2

Cloning Arguments Against Cloning Dangerous Experiment? • An experiment now that could create • Dangers to cloned humans now (based on dangerous mutations, harming the child experience with animals) leads most to oppose doing it with our current • The right to reproductive freedom doesn’t knowledge. include a right to decide what kind of • Question: should we oppose it in principle children to have. or “at this time” (NBAC) and leave the • More than that, it violates a child’s right to possibility open? an “open identity.” Further Arguments for/against Kass: Perversities of Cloning • We already have identical twins • Changes begetting into making: here we manufacture human beings as man-made things. – But this is different. A clone could see how his/her • Cloning “denies the procreative teleology of sexuality “clone” lived life if much older. itself.” • It doesn’t deny open future because people are • “Excess of human wil not genetically determined • The creator stands above the created thing: “profoundly – But people might feel that it does, and that itself is a dehumanizing no matter how good the product. psychological harm. • Changes the whole way we look at children, no longer to – Those who did the cloning would have expectations be loved unconditionally. the cloned person would unfairly be expected to meet. What Social Policy to Adopt? • Even if ethically problematic , not itself an argument for banning. • Should we enact a permanent ban? • What about other countries? Would need an international ban? • If impossible, should we ban the research right now? • What about cloning-for-research? Medical Ethics 3