When David Rorvik wrote In His Image: The Cloning of a Man in 1978, many
believed the story that a secret cloning experiment had resulted in what
historian Ivan Illich called the "unspeakable horror" of the modern age. As
it turned out, the publisher admitted it was a hoax, even though Rorvik
maintained his story was true. But it did send many into a spin about what
cloning would really mean, and many scientists made solemn statements to the
effect that "such a thing will never happen in my lifetime".
What would it be like as a clone trying to make your own unique contribution
to the world when your clonal parent, or is it sibling, had many years' head
start on you? Would you be hopelessly deprived of a free and open future,
psychologically and even physically compromised, or would the power of
environment and individual choice trump genetic duplicity, making you
ultimately your own person?
Either way, is it an experiment anyone has the right to carry out on the
life of another human being?
Well, now we are one step closer to conducting just such an experiment.
Scientists from Massachusetts have just published the results of their go at
playing God by producing in the laboratory for the first time humans created
asexually. No more sperm and eggs or unhygienic sex.
And, as if that were not enough, in the same paper they describe the
production of a human being by a technique called parthenogenesis - fooling
an egg into behaving as if fertilised by retaining a second set of
gene-containing chromosomes.
Why the interest in such bizarre experiments with human life? Do they intend
implanting these embryos and letting them develop until birth? They assure
us they have no interest in that. After all, it is not really safe yet - as
if that were the only relevant criterion for restraint.
What they have in mind is the production of embryos so the stem cells they
produce can be harvested at the expense of the embryo. The embryonic stem
cells would then be used in research on Parkinson's disease, diabetes or
spinal injury.
If eventually used in treatment, the cells would be compatible since they
would be genetically nearly identical with those of the patient who supplied
the tissue to make the embryo. Even though many of the claims have been
exaggerated, there is no doubt treatments for such debilitating conditions
must command serious medical research effort.
But is the production of human embryos for destruction warranted? Should
human embryos, finally totally isolated on the laboratory bench, be the new
human lab rats of the 21st century? And why go down this path when adult
stem cells hold so much equivalent promise?
An embryo is human, a new individual, alive and in possession of a
remarkable capacity for self-directed development. Furthermore, it is
textbook biology to acknowledge that fertilisation is the start of life.
An embryo is not simply a clump of cells, nor an undifferentiated mass.
Recent experiments show that even from the first division the two-cell
embryo begins to specialise, with each cell committed to different
developmental pathways. In the face of the mystery, should we really be so
cavalier about their destruction?
The Massachusetts experiments used human eggs taken from women who had
agreed to be part of the research for payment. Removing eggs requires
surgery under anaesthesia after hyperstimulation with hormones to produce 10
or more eggs rather than the usual one per cycle. Such a procedure is not
without risks, and to obtain the cloned embryo that developed to the
six-cell stage, 77 eggs were used. It is not hard to envisage that the women
prepared to undergo the procedure would be those in need of the money, which
raises questions about their vulnerability.
The research group's interest in embryonic stem cells for therapy has been
called "therapeutic cloning", to distinguish it from "reproductive cloning"
where the embryo would be implanted and one day allowed to see the light of
day. But reproductive technology has always been about the production of
living human embryos. The distinction is spurious. The European Parliament
calls it a sleight of hand and the Australian Health Ethics Committee says
it is "lacking transparency and concealing the truth". The production of
embryos is always reproductive; their destruction is never therapeutic.
What must now be faced is the inevitable contribution this research has made
to the eventual implantation of a cloned embryo and its development until
birth. Cloning human embryos can never be quarantined from the production of
live-born human clones, and the hope of new therapy should never become just
another way of destroying nascent human life.
And what must also be faced is the type of society we have now become - when
cloning embryonic human beings and either destroying them or bringing them
to term, previously thought to be ethically "unthinkable", is celebrated in
our media as a spectacular medical "breakthrough" by our scientific
champions.
Dr Gregory K. Pike is deputy director of the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Adelaide.
believed the story that a secret cloning experiment had resulted in what
historian Ivan Illich called the "unspeakable horror" of the modern age. As
it turned out, the publisher admitted it was a hoax, even though Rorvik
maintained his story was true. But it did send many into a spin about what
cloning would really mean, and many scientists made solemn statements to the
effect that "such a thing will never happen in my lifetime".
What would it be like as a clone trying to make your own unique contribution
to the world when your clonal parent, or is it sibling, had many years' head
start on you? Would you be hopelessly deprived of a free and open future,
psychologically and even physically compromised, or would the power of
environment and individual choice trump genetic duplicity, making you
ultimately your own person?
Either way, is it an experiment anyone has the right to carry out on the
life of another human being?
Well, now we are one step closer to conducting just such an experiment.
Scientists from Massachusetts have just published the results of their go at
playing God by producing in the laboratory for the first time humans created
asexually. No more sperm and eggs or unhygienic sex.
And, as if that were not enough, in the same paper they describe the
production of a human being by a technique called parthenogenesis - fooling
an egg into behaving as if fertilised by retaining a second set of
gene-containing chromosomes.
Why the interest in such bizarre experiments with human life? Do they intend
implanting these embryos and letting them develop until birth? They assure
us they have no interest in that. After all, it is not really safe yet - as
if that were the only relevant criterion for restraint.
What they have in mind is the production of embryos so the stem cells they
produce can be harvested at the expense of the embryo. The embryonic stem
cells would then be used in research on Parkinson's disease, diabetes or
spinal injury.
If eventually used in treatment, the cells would be compatible since they
would be genetically nearly identical with those of the patient who supplied
the tissue to make the embryo. Even though many of the claims have been
exaggerated, there is no doubt treatments for such debilitating conditions
must command serious medical research effort.
But is the production of human embryos for destruction warranted? Should
human embryos, finally totally isolated on the laboratory bench, be the new
human lab rats of the 21st century? And why go down this path when adult
stem cells hold so much equivalent promise?
An embryo is human, a new individual, alive and in possession of a
remarkable capacity for self-directed development. Furthermore, it is
textbook biology to acknowledge that fertilisation is the start of life.
An embryo is not simply a clump of cells, nor an undifferentiated mass.
Recent experiments show that even from the first division the two-cell
embryo begins to specialise, with each cell committed to different
developmental pathways. In the face of the mystery, should we really be so
cavalier about their destruction?
The Massachusetts experiments used human eggs taken from women who had
agreed to be part of the research for payment. Removing eggs requires
surgery under anaesthesia after hyperstimulation with hormones to produce 10
or more eggs rather than the usual one per cycle. Such a procedure is not
without risks, and to obtain the cloned embryo that developed to the
six-cell stage, 77 eggs were used. It is not hard to envisage that the women
prepared to undergo the procedure would be those in need of the money, which
raises questions about their vulnerability.
The research group's interest in embryonic stem cells for therapy has been
called "therapeutic cloning", to distinguish it from "reproductive cloning"
where the embryo would be implanted and one day allowed to see the light of
day. But reproductive technology has always been about the production of
living human embryos. The distinction is spurious. The European Parliament
calls it a sleight of hand and the Australian Health Ethics Committee says
it is "lacking transparency and concealing the truth". The production of
embryos is always reproductive; their destruction is never therapeutic.
What must now be faced is the inevitable contribution this research has made
to the eventual implantation of a cloned embryo and its development until
birth. Cloning human embryos can never be quarantined from the production of
live-born human clones, and the hope of new therapy should never become just
another way of destroying nascent human life.
And what must also be faced is the type of society we have now become - when
cloning embryonic human beings and either destroying them or bringing them
to term, previously thought to be ethically "unthinkable", is celebrated in
our media as a spectacular medical "breakthrough" by our scientific
champions.
Dr Gregory K. Pike is deputy director of the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Adelaide.
© The Age 2001