Glenn Reynolds links a piece over at WIRED in which Gregg Easterbrook argues that we should embrace human cloning.
But before we get to the "not" part, I want to give Mr. Easterbrook his props, because he makes several good points, including often overlooked ones, and he attempts to respond to those with an opposing view by attempting to address their arguments in a fair and evenhanded manner.
So let's take a look at what he has to say and try to sort the wheat from the chaff . . .
Human clones, it is widely assumed, would be monstrous perversions of nature. Yet chances are, you already know one. Indeed, you may know several and even have dated a clone. They walk among us in the form of identical twins: people who share exact sets of DNA.
Yes! This is a point people often overlook. Human clones already exist, and the answer to many of the things people wonder about clones (e.g., would they have souls, can you baptize them, etc.) can be answered just by asking the same question about identical twins. "Clone" just means "genetically identical individual." Clones are not mysterious, alien, science-fictiony creatures. In fact, the thing that makes a clone a clone is its sameness, not its differentness. And for whatever reason (reasons we don't have a good grasp on), human pregnancies sometimes result in two or more genetically identical individuals.
Such twins almost always look alike and often have similar quirks. But their minds, experiences, and personalities are different, and no one supposes they are less than fully human. And if identical twins are fully human, wouldn't cloned people be as well?
Suppose scientists could create a clone from an adult human: It would probably be more distinct from its predecessor than most identical twins are from each other. A clone from a grown-up would have the same DNA but would come into the world as a gurgling baby, not an instant adult, as in sci-fi. The clone would go through childhood and adolescence with the same life-shaping unpredictability as any kid.
Yah, though I'm not quite sure what is meant by "more distinct from its predecessor than most identical twins." I suppose what is meant is that a clone would have a life history that is more different from the life history of the original than the life histories of two identical twins. While I agree that that much may be true, I don't see how that results in "more distinct" individuals. Indeed, any time in the near future reproductive cloning will be used by very rich people who want "Mini-Me"s that they can creepily raise to inherit the corporation, and the clones will be steered down paths that nudge them in the direction of being "just like Dad."
The eminent University of Chicago ethicist Leon Kass has argued that human cloning would be offensive in part because the clone would "not be fully a surprise to the world." True, but what child is? Almost all share physical traits and mannerisms with their parents. By having different experiences than their parents (er, parent) and developing their own personalities, clones would become distinct individuals with the same originality and dignity as identical twins—or anyone else.
I'm not familiar with Leon Kass's work, and despite the conjunction of the words "university" and "ethicist"–which is a high-reliability marker for "rationalizer of dehumanization"–it's heartening to hear of a university ethicist objecting to human cloning.
Nevertheless, I don't find Kass's argument–at least in the micro-form in which Easterbrook presents it–to be persuasive.
On the other hand, while I agree that a normal child is not a total surprise to the world, and that total surprise is not a sine qua non of human reproduction, I don't buy at all the idea that developing one's own personality is needed for one to have human dignity (like "identical twins–or anyone else"). Dignity is something you have by virtue of being human. You don't have to grow or develop to have it. It's one of the standard features we come with from the factory, and mor
al principle requires it to be respected rather than disrespected.
Cloning does the latter by imposing on a child the disordered genetic will to power of a particular individual.
Others argue that cloning is "unnatural."
It is unnatural, but we have to be careful here what we mean by "nature." We've already seen that nature (meaning, the natural world) produces human clones in the form of twins. That's as may be, but the kind of nature we are concerned about in moral discussions is not the physical or empirical world but the moral principles that can be discerned by reflection on human nature. That's what natural law reasoning is all about (cf. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor).
Unfortunately, Easterbrook takes a serious misstep here, and his argument thus goes off track due to an inaccurate or inapplicable conception of nature.
But nature wants us to pass on our genes; if cloning assists in that effort, nature would not be offended.
"Nature" as the physical world doesn't care about anything at all because it's not a person. Easterbrook is certainly aware of this and is presumably speaking of nature "wanting" or being "offended" as a form of literary expression (i.e., personification), but that doesn't mean that the conclusion "nature would not be offended" (translated: "It is not immoral") follows from his premise that "nature wants us to pass on our genes."
The fact that we have a hereditary impulse to pass on our genes doesn't justify any and all means toward that end.
Take rape as an example. Rape occurs sometimes in the human population and very often in some animal populations. But would we countenance the argument that "nature wants us to pass on our genes; if rape assists in that effort, nature would not be offended"?
Nature as the blind, physical world would indeed not be offended, but that doesn't change the fact that for one human to rape another is hideously immoral–precisely because it is contrary to the moral principles embedded in human nature.
In fact, rape is in some ways a good analog for cloning, because in both situations a single individual fully imposes himself (or herself) on another–in one case sexually, in the other case genetically. They both represent, in different ways, the total imposition of Me.
Moreover, cloning itself isn't new; there have been many species that reproduced clonally and a few that still do.
This is quite true! But these species aren't human beings. The fact that ducks rape ducks does not constitute an argument that humans should rape humans. Think in terms of human nature and what is says about a human who would want a genetic copy of himself.
And there's nothing intrinsically unnatural about human inventions that improve reproductive odds—does anyone think nature is offended by hospital delivery made safe by banks of machines?
This does not necessarily make human cloning desirable; there are complicated issues to consider.
Good point! Props to Easterbrook for being willing to explore this aspect of the subject.
Initial mammalian cloning experiments, with sheep and other species, have produced many sickly offspring that die quickly.
A very important point, though a subsidiary one since it doesn't go to the core reason why human cloning is wrong.
Could it ever be ethical to conduct research that produces sick babies in the hope of figuring out how to make healthy clones?
No! No, it could not! This treats human beings as objects, as medical experiments (cf. Nazis, Jews). The only legitimate reason to produce babies is to have babies. Human beings are ends in themselves. You cannot produce babies in order to "conduct research." That dehumanizes human beings (the babies in question), and it is thus contrary to human nature and thus immoral.
And clones might be treated as inferiors, rendering them unhappy.
I'm not sure if "rendering them unhappy" is meant to be humorous, but there's a lot of issues in this sentence. As to whether clones would be treated as inferiors in their post-birth lives, who can say? That depends on a variety of factors, though it is a possibility. Merely by being created they were mistreated since they had someone else's genetic will to power imposed on them at the moment of conception, and all those sick baby clones who got killed while the process was being perfected–they sure were treated as inferiors.
Still, human cloning should not be out of the question. In vitro fertilization was once seen as depraved God-playing and is now embraced, even by many of the devoutly religious.
There are devoutly religious people who will endorse any horror you want (and devoutly irreligious ones who will do exactly the same thing).
The fact that in vitro fertilization–which similarly subverts human nature and the reproductive process appropriate to it (and which also results in numerous abortions due to too many kids surviving the implantation process, and millions more kids kept indefinitely "on ice," contrary to their human dignity)–only shows how accustomed we have become to treating human beings like objects.
Cloning could be a blessing for the infertile, who otherwise could not experience biological parenthood.
As we've seen, this is one of those "ends don't justify the means" things. Experiencing biological parenthood is a good thing, but you can't use any means you want to achieve it, as we saw in our discussion of rape (and, contrary to the claims of some feminists, rape is not simply about power; it is often about pleasure and also about reproduction; this was illustrated by the Bosnian ethnic cleansing rapes of the 1990s in which militants of one ethnic group raped women of another specifically to produce children that would have their own ethnic group's blood),
And . . . anyone having a clone is not really experiencing biological parenthood. Being a biological parent among humans means having your genes intertwined with those of another of the opposite sex. Even identical twins–the human clones that do exist at present–have genes from two biological parents.
And it isn't just biological parenthood that the infertile want. They want the experience of raising a child that is biologically their own–both of theirs.
Cloning doesn't do that, as can be seen if you imagine cloning the context of an infertile couple. If the couple creates a clone of one of them then the other doesn't get the experience of biological parenthood. Instead, they're living in a marriage with a creepy Mini-You running around the house, changing the Mini-You's diapers, making sure that the Mini-You does its homework, etc.
At least IVF, as bad as it is, lets both spouses be biological parents!
And, of course, it would be a blessing for the clone itself.
No. Life is a blessing to the clone. Cloning was not. Cloning was the immoral means used to create life. One could not rephrase this and say, "of course, rape would be a blessing for the child of a rape." Children born of rape are blessed by being alive, but that doesn't in any way justify the method by which they were conceived.
Suppose a clone is later asked, "Are you glad you exist even though you are physically quite similar to someone else, or do you wish you had never existed?" We all know what the answer would be.
Yes, we do, because the gift of life is so good. Except for the suicidal, nobody who is alive would rather not have been born. That's the survival drive that is also part of human nature, and just as with the other fundamental human drives–the drive to reproduce, the drive to eat, the drive to socialize with other humans, etc.–it represents a good end that cannot be pursued by evil means.
The children of rape also would rather exist than not exist but that isn't an argument for rape. In fact, though the act of rape gave these children life, it also gave them a broken life situation in which they must either be shielded from knowledge of their true origin or they must live under the shadow of the immoral act that led to their conception and that makes their origin different than everyone else's.
The act of reproductive cloning would put the resulting children in an analogous situation.
Let's not put them there.
Beyond what Mr. Easterbrook covers in his piece,
there are other problems with cloning, such as all of the kids who would be created, experimented upon, and then killed as part of "therapeutic cloning."
The bottom line is that you either have to respect the way human nature is set up or decide that we are just walking bags of chemicals that possess no intrinsic dignity or rights–"ugly bags of mostly water"–and that humans therefore can be subject to any form of technological manipulation imaginable.
I'm not dissing the idea of using technology to assist human reproduction (rather than replacing it with something else) or the idea of using technology to help people genetically (gene therapy! woo-hoo!!) or even the idea of technologically augmenting human nature (super powers! bring 'em on!!!).
I am rejecting the idea of treating people as objects which can be manipulated and exploited with no regard for human nature and human dignity.
If that's okay then find the right candidate, trick him out with whatever augments you want, program him to love his work and not be able to conceive any other, and then . . .
Jimmy,
Very interesting. Creepy egomaniacs would likely be early adopters of the technology. However, I suspect that many less-wealthy folk would opt to purchase celebrity clones. Then National Health Care would pay for cloning for everyone else.
Population geneticists ought to be alarmed at this proposal, since it would reduce the gene pool, subjecting large numbers of individuals to unknown genetic threats.
Genetic modification, the next obvious step, would lead to widespread unforeseen problems. Some ‘transhumanists’ want to control the forces of human evolution through cloning and genetic modification, although this technically would not be evolution but rather (not-so) intelligent design. These folks are not smart enough to do what they want to do, and obviously they are very morally deficient.
Also, there could be future governments who will target the clones for elimination, since they are elitist products of bourgeois excess, and therefore are non-persons, according to their thinking.
I don’t see any good in this.
Twins are clones, but clones are not, to my mind, twins. Being a twin, I have thought this through a lot. The difference between the two is alluded to by Jimmy – synchronicity. Twins are produced simultaneously; clones are not. They are asynchronously produced from the original. Their parental line is also derivative and duplicative in that they are a second generation copy of a pre-existing genetic configuration. True twins are new material. Clones are, properly speaking, not a twin of the original for other reasons as well, such as epigenetic expression due to environmental and developmental factors, which would cause more of a deviation from the original than in true twins. Although clones may share many attributes of twins, genetically, at a practical level, they are not what I think should be properly called twins. Let’s keep the distinction between twins and clones. It is important.
The Chicken
Creepy, this is!
Creepy that cloning is even being discussed. The thing is, it doesn’t take anything like majority approval for something like this to move forward… all it takes is a fringe element (with lots of cash) pushing it, and the rest of us tolerating it.
Strange thing, though; aren’t the people most willing to push the envelope on this generally the same people who warn us that we’re having too many babies? You’d think the Zero Population Growth crowd would be all over protesting this. From their point of view, why make it easier for ANYONE to reproduce?
“many less-wealthy folk would opt to purchase celebrity clones.”
Of course! It’s inevitable, and plenty of celebs (and even the families of dead celebs) will be happy to oblige. Why settle for the Elvis Boxed Set when you can have Elvis? You could teach him to say “Thank you… ThankYouVurrahMush” when you pass him the butter.
Humanae Vitae is proved prophetic once again. Once abandon natural procreation (a more apt term than “reproduction”, IMO), and everything becomes acceptable. Artificial birth control, abortion, IVF, Embryonic “research” and human cloning are all of a piece.
Sometimes a slippery slope really is very slippery. Truth is, though, that there is no slope to the progression at all. Artificial birth control – the abandonment of natural law – was a step off a cliff.
More thoughts on that here;
http://timothyjones.typepad.com/old_world_swine/2009/08/moral-freefall.html
Actually it’s even worse — what we need to be focusing on is how to respond when someone, somewhere, does clone a human being. And it’s virtually inevitable, for the simple reason that the relevant technologies are rapidly becoming cheaper and more available. Already it’s possible (albeit expensive) to have a clone made of your cat or dog, and medical researchers are trying to apply it to chimps, which are endangered in the wild. Pretty soon some rogue nation or sub-national actor (the Russian mafiya? an amoral transnational corporation?) is going to take that technology and apply it to human beings. Maybe to replicate a charismatic leader, maybe because illicit cloning is a great moneymaker (like illicit gambling, recreational drugs, prostitution, etc), maybe for weird reasons that make sense only to fanatics. But once it’s possible, someone out there is going to do it, simply because there are plenty of people with elastic or non-existent morals.
The biggest question to my mind is how to adequately punish the culprits without treating the resultant clone as being a co-culprit just for existing. We need to clearly establish that children produced via illegal cloning are innocent victims, not monsters to be stigmatized (thus virtually ensuring that they’ll turn out badly — nobody who experiences continual rejection by society is going to feel warm feelings toward the hand that is always against them).
Masked Chicken-
if my understanding of current cloning technology is correct, clones are also not twins because they don’t share ALL the DNA– the mitochondrial DNA would be different, for example.
I’m greatly reassured that the arguments I read here against reproductive cloning match those offered in response to GB’s plan to clone humans in cow eggs. Assuming the humanity of the person born that way, especially morally, but pointing out it’s an abomination– totally horrific thing to DO to someone.
Speaking of cloning problems, the cloning of dogs isn’t going quite as smooth as some report:
http://www.marymeetsdolly.com/blog/index.php?/archives/880-Doggone-abnormal-clones.html
As the lady puts it: “Ah gender. Such a pesky little trait. Very hard to get right.”
The biggest question to my mind is how to adequately punish the culprits without treating the resultant clone as being a co-culprit just for existing..
Not to be cynical, but that really hasn’t worked out in the case of abortion. People procuring abortions are rarely punished. I suspect that, over time, with the current erosion of morals, the same will happen with cloning.
The coming century will be the century of biotechnology. I think when Jesus said a time will come when those who are barren will consider themselves blessed he may have been referring to this century.
The Chicken
I notice the assumption that the clone would always be the clone of the person who procured them.
In one discussion of cloning, I ran across the statement that we would, of course, never object to grieving parents cloning their dead child. (I would, of course, not only object; I would argue that doing so should be sufficient grounds to terminate parental rights.)
And in another, I have heard a person talk about cloning a celebrity as a memento — and wouldn’t that be nice? (shudder)
without treating the resultant clone as being a co-culprit just for existing
Terminate parental rights and place the clone for adoption. Closed adoption.
I would highly recommend reading some of what Leon Kass has written about human cloning. He is the former chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics (under G.W. Bush). He is not catholic, however, his writings are at times almost poetic and come very close to the teachings of the Church.
In one discussion of cloning, I ran across the statement that we would, of course, never object to grieving parents cloning their dead child.
Good grief, imagine what that would do to you– being the surviving child is *already* bad enough, I know from watching classmates. This takes the worst part of survivor’s grief and adds it to the spare-parts child issue.
Er, off topic– but yo! Mary! I had no idea I knew you from Mr. Wright’s place!
>>without treating the resultant clone as being a co-culprit just for existing
>Terminate parental rights and place the clone for adoption. Closed adoption.
That works great as long as you can catch them right away, while the child is not yet born or an infant. But if the technology becomes sufficiently available that it can be done at least as easily and secretly as crystal meth manufacture, let alone bathtub gin, it could easily be years before cloners were caught — by which time the child is old enough to be severely traumatized by being yanked away from the only parents they’ve known and arbitrarily handed to new parents, given a new name, etc.
Imagine a couple who, after losing their beloved child in an accident, secretly obtain viable cells and then head off to a shady clinic in Mexico/Thailand/Russia/you-name-it. They return home without fanfare, and nine months later a child is born. Nobody thinks to connect the international travel with the birth, so no questions are raised. It’s simply assumed that the trip abroad sufficiently relaxed the parents that they were able to conceive again. Several years later, the shady clinic gets busted, and the parents are identified as having had their first child cloned. By this time, the kid is probably in school, certainly old enough to have bonded with the parents, maybe even old enough to object to being adopted out and actively reject any adoptive parents.
And quite honestly, I can’t see any way to prevent it once the technology gets there in non-human Homonidae, short of rigorously monitoring everybody who goes abroad and casting suspicions on everybody that gets pregnant shortly after a trip abroad. There are just too many places in the Third World where setting up such a shady clinic would require only paying the right bribes to the right people.
The first human cloned will probably be somebody like Kim Jong Il. Anybody want to volunteer to terminate his parental rights and adopt the kid out?
And once the proof of concept has been paraded before the world by the Megalomaniac Dictator, it’ll only be a matter of time before the technology is in the hands of mobsters and other sub-national actors who’ll be perfectly happy to set up shady clinics in places who’ll welcome the influx of hard currency and not ask too many questions about where it came from.
Jimmy — Great thoughts. Some of the most coherent I’ve heard on the subject.
As to how to punish the cloner vs. the clone, I think it’s similar to how abortion used to be punished. Women were not held culpable for abortions, abortionists were. They would lose their medical license and face grave fines and prison time.
Sometimes pressure was applied to women with threats of punishment so they would reveal the abortionist, and that was certainly morally questionable, but women didn’t do prison time for getting abortions. They were rightly seen as victims.
The same MIGHT be true (I’m no ethicist) for parents who seek cloning. The cloner should certainly be punished, but the parents might have understandably have sought the dastardly service out of grief or some such thing. Just a thought.
But, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about this because it seems like our society is about a half an inch away from saying, “Aw, forget it, let’s just allow cloning.”
The debate we’re having now is just window dressing so we can say, “We thought really hard about this difficult moral decision” just like we did with abortion before we legalized it with no restrictions whatsoever.
We live in a culture that’s constantly living the first phase of Mark Shea’s famous two phases of culture: 1) What could it hurt? and 2) How could we possibly have known??!!
Leigh-
sounds like the problem they ran into in DS9 with Dr. Bashir and his being genetically modified to make him smarter.
Off topic — hi, Foxfier! You know me from Mr. Wright’s place!
0:)
Jimmy: Kass is Jewish. He has often written for one of my favorite magazines, Commentary. He’s someone who is assuredly on the “good guys” side of this debate.
I see cloning as the extension of stem cell research to cure illnesses. How diabolical would it be to keep a personal clone “slave” in case of any organ failure or other life threatening condition? And how easily could we rationalize this with our fallen nature? Some parents have already procreated a sibling for the express purpose of providing some hopefully matching tissue (i.e. bone marrow) for another ailing son/daughter, reasoning that the “addition” to the family would be a comfort (replacement) to ease the possible loss of the ill child. Shudder.
Dear Jimmy,
I await your thoughts on:
1) Distinguishing Contemplative Prayer from Centering Prayer
2) The recent guidelines published by Medugorje’s bishop
Thanks
Late to this thread…
Jimmy (and any other scifi geeks), I highly recommend Karen Traviss’ ‘Republic Commando’ novels. They tackle the horrific nature of the clone soldier’s existence, and how they are fully human, and what happens…best take on the Star Wars setting, ever. It’s not pretty, but it is very uplifiting.
(And it just hit me there there’s a good deal of Catholic/Christian concepts in there, too, just hidden…)
*waves to Mary and Foxfier* Another JC Wright friend/fan! 🙂