Human Cloning and Human Dignity: The Report of the President’s Council on Bioethics – Jennie Lee

      In Human Cloning and Human Dignity, Leon Kass discusses the two main purposes of human cloning: cloning to produce children, and cloning for biomedical research. Cloning to produce children (reproductive cloning) is defined as “production of a cloned human embryo, formed for the purpose of initiating a pregnancy, with the (ultimate) goal of producing a child (Kass, 90)”, while cloning for biomedical research (therapeutic cloning) is defined as the “production of a cloned human embryo, formed for the purpose of using it in research or for extraction its stem cells, with the (ultimate) goals of gaining scientific knowledge of abnormal development and… human disease (Kass, 91).” The concept of cloning in general is entangled in complex ethical questions, as it presents both positive and negative consequences that threaten to infringe upon human rights and societal structure. 

The proponents for reproductive cloning present a variety of benefits cloning can bring. This includes the opportunity to produce biologically related children for infertile individuals or couples, cloning also allows for selective gene selection that can prevent significant genetic diseases for children at risk. Human cloning can also produce rejection proof transplant donors for sick individuals, and it is provides an opportunity to recreate people who possessed great intelligence, talent, or beauty. Furthermore, proponents argue that cloning is merely the next step to artificial reproductive technology (ART), thus banning it would be a violation of reproductive freedom. This presents an interesting argument, as cloning certainly can be seen as an extension, or even an evolution of ART. If cloning is framed as a new form of ART, do you think people’s perception of reproductive cloning may change? Furthermore, Scholar Laurence Tribe adds, “a society that bans acts of human creation that reflect unconventional sex roles or parenting models (surrogate motherhood, IVF, artificial insemination) for no better reason than that such acts dare to defy ‘nature’ and tradition is a society that risks cutting itself off from vital experimentation (Kass, 122).” Additionally, under the goodness of existence argument, proponents claim that “existence itself, is the first ‘interest’ that makes all other interests possible. Even taking into account the possibility of serious genetic or developmental disorders, this position holds that a cloned individual, once born, would prefer existence as a clone to no existence at all (Kass, 123).” This argument was particularly insightful to me because it argues that existence trumps one’s quality of life. I disagree with this sentiment, and it is also in conflict with one of the key benefits to cloning, which is the use of eugenics to enhance genetic features of humans. 

Although there are some benefits to reproductive cloning as highlighted, there are serious flaws to the arguments that must be addressed, as it raises the questions, do these benefits outweigh the cost of the consequence? 

The ethics of research on human subjects committee categorizes the consequences of reproductive cloning into biological and societal problems. There have been a few successful instances of mammalian reproductive cloning, however, studies reveal that 89% of cloned pregnancies are unsuccessful, and the majority of the few live clones suffer major abnormalities. Dolly the Sheep is infamous for being the first successful live clone, yet it is less known that she suffered from early onset arthritis and other health consequences that led to her death at six years of age, making her the oldest cloned mammal to date. Cloned pregnancies present significant risk to the surrogate as well, leading to conditions like toxemia and fluid build-up in the uterus which can be fatal. Thus, human cloning at this stage would fall under unethical experimentation on human subjects, and the steps that need to be taken to make cloning an ethical experiment would also be unethical. Reproductive cloning also presents a serious identity crisis among individuals, as the act of cloning is to produce multiple copies of an existing individual. This leads to complications behind the perception of the clone in society, the clone’s complicated genetic relationship to its family, and the ethics of eugenics that will certainly dictate the future of human reproduction. Furthermore, “the Council is unanimous in opposing cloning to produce children. [They] hold that harms and injustices to prospective cloned offspring and the women involved… are sufficiently great (Kass, 300).” 

Biomedical research for cloning, on the other hand, presents a new set of pros and cons. The major benefit to therapeutic research is that “such research could lead to important knowledge about human embryological development and gene action, both normal and abnormal, ultimately resulting in treatments and cures for many dreaded illnesses and disabilities (Kass, 30).” Yet, this form of cloning is controversial because its execution involves deliberately creating, manipulating, then ultimately destroying human embryos, and those same embryos, if implanted, carry the possibility of producing a human. I found this argument interesting because my current biomedical research project involves creating, manipulating, then ultimately destroying zebrafish embryos, however, the ethical implications are much less complex. It is true that human life is considered more valuable in our society, but it also brings up the question of who gets to determine what form of life is more valuable than others? Additionally, there is certainly an extent to which animal models can be used to study human conditions. Under these circumstances, how great do you think the ethical disparity is between using animal embryos vs human embryos for biomedical research? 

Among the Council, there were two categories of proponents for biomedical research for cloning: those who favored cloning but with serious moral concerns of using live human embryos, and those who saw “no special moral problems [with therapeutic cloning], and therefore should be endorsed with enthusiasm as a potential new means of gaining knowledge to serve humankind (Kass, 34).” Council members who were against this form of cloning viewed it as morally wrong, as they expressed “we find it disquieting, even somewhat ignoble, to treat what are in fact seeds of the next generation as mere raw material for satisfying the needs of our own (Kass, 35).” Given that therapeutic cloning presents the unique opportunity to learn more about the causes of diseases and genetic disabilities that can alleviate human suffering of people who already ‘exist’, do you think the good outweighs the bad? Do you think it would be an ethical alternative if the embryos used for research were donations of leftover embryos from IVF couples (these embryos would otherwise be frozen or discarded)? 

In Cloning People: A Jewish Law Analysis of the Issues, the author describes how the ethics of cloning is accepted in Jewish law. First, it is important to note that the “Jewish law insists that new technologies- and particularly new reproductive technologies- are neither categorically prohibited nor categorically permissible in the eyes of Jewish law (Boyd, 504).”  Thus, if cloning is accepted as a form of ART, it is neither morally good nor bad under the Jewish law. The complication arises when determining who the cloned child belongs to, given that cloning is an asexual process of reproduction. Under Jewish legal tradition, “the gestational mother is the legal mother of the child (Boyd, 511)”, and the sperm donor is the father. However, there are also authorities who rule that in the “absence [of a] sexual relationship, even if paternity is established,  there is no fulfillment of the biblical obligation to ‘be fruitful and increase’ or a fulfillment of the rabbinic obligation to inhabit the Earth (Boyd, 513).” Thus, because cloning involves no sexual relationship in reproduction, this would not “fulfill the mitzvah to procreate according to Jewish law (Boyd, 513).” It must also be recognized that under Jewish law, the term ‘be fruitful and multiply’ mainly applies to men. Thus, when a woman donates her egg for reproductive cloning, and another woman carries the baby to term, no man is involved in the production of this child, therefore there is ‘no mitzvah’ and it brings in the question of who is the father, which is a unique problem that is unique to reproductive cloning. In cases as such, if a father must be claimed under Jewish law, who would be the father? Jewish law also states that regardless of genetic similarity, the gestational mother is the legal mother. Would you agree that the gestational mother in the scenario above is the rightful mother of the child, despite the child being a genetic clone of the donor mother? 

A major difference seen between the Council and Jewish law, is that while the Council questioned much of the ethics behind the alternative motives behind reproductive cloning, Jewish law “sees nothing wrong with having children for a multiplicity of motives other than one’s desire to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (Kass, 532).” For example, if an individual suffering from leukemia decided to create a clone for a bone marrow transplant, the Jewish law sees this act as serving two goods, which is the creation of a new life while simultaneously helping another life. To conclude, although cloning is not seen as the ideal way to reproduce, given the ambiguity it presents to lineage and determination of mitzvah, reproductive cloning is still acceptable under Jewish law if it is the only way an individual can have children.