The Stampede of the Cloning Herd
Score another big victory for Big Biotech's disingenuous and obfuscating propaganda campaign in favor of human cloning. Iowa has revoked its complete ban in order to permit research into SCNT in the state. And, as happened in Missouri, California, and ever other state that has debated the issue, the argument often was swayed by the scientifically false assertion that human cloning does not create a cloned human embryo.
Interestingly, in countries such as the UK where human SCNT is less controversial, scientists readily acknowledge that SCNT creates an embryo. (Maybe its a different SCNT than the American version.) But what do facts matter when the bovines are being stampeding off an ethical cliff?
Tens of billions are going to be spent worldwide trying to learn how to clone human life. Whichever way the science goes, there seems no way for this to end well. If it "works," we will move quickly toward creating human life like an Iowa corn crop, and harvesting it for processing, just as corn is turned into ethanol. Cloning success will also move into genetic engineering, fetal farming (for which we will hear the same junk biological arguments of purported non humanity and the potential for CURES! CURES! CURES!), and finally, cloning to birth.
If it doesn't work--which is certainly a distinct possibility--there will be a financial loss of epic proportions, akin to the dot com bust. Only this time most of the losses will be tallied in the public's money. But by then, we will be on to the next stampede.
But what the heck. The great god science (as a perceived end, not the method) must receive its sacrifices. Full speed ahead to the brave new world!
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:15 AM
20 Comments
20 Comments:
We could easily enact an egg and sperm law to stop human cloning and genetic engineering. Missouri's passed without any opposition. And once we have prohibited reproductive cloning, we can oppose therapuetic cloning on its own terms, pointing out that adult stem cells offer better therapy, and continue the moral arguments about embryos being humans, etc.
I think your reasoning is that if we only outlaw conceiving children from GE'd embryos while letting them keep researching cloning embryos anyway, they will soon enough clamor that they've made it safe now and try to change the law, or maybe just do it illegally. But at least we'd have a law and could put someone in jail for trying it, whereas your strategy seems to lead to a stalemate with out any laws at all. How close is the "all or nothing" strategy to banning all cloning? I'm certainly not opposed to banning all cloning, I just think we need to get an egg and sperm law passed as soon as possible, there is no time to play chicken anymore. We can ban research cloning later, can't we?
Did you ever blog about Dr Richard Scott? The fertility doctor who expects to see genetically engineered babies created in "three to five years"? That was two years ago!
You can't agree to legalize something that is intrinsically wrong, as human SCNT is in my opinion. Better to have no law, then the state's explicit imprimatur on human cloning. The act of cloning is SCNT. Everything else after that is determining what to do with the cloned human life that has been created.
Besides, John: Your proposed approach, banning Rep. cloning while permitting Th. Cloning is precisely the Big Biotech agenda, which has has already been implemented in MO with Amendment 2, CA, with Prop. 71, New Jersey, which has legalized cloning, implantation and gestation through the ninth month, etc.
It is the anything goes approach in slow motion.
I also hold that it is wrong to ban "reproductive cloning" while permitting the creation of embryos by cloning, because this bans the only rightful act towards any embryos thus created: Treating them as persons and giving them a chance at life by trying to implant and gestate them. In fact, I think that if such human embryos were successfully cloned and lived, anyone who had them in custody _should_ try to engage in "reproductive cloning" by implanting them if he could find women willing to do an adoptive pregnancy.
In fact, all cloning, if it works, is reproductive, because the new human being--the embryo-- has been produced regardless of whether it's implanted or not. So banning implantation and gestation (which is what "banning reproductive cloning" really should be called) is flatly immoral, as it mandates that any embryo created by cloning be killed.
Lydia is right. SCNT is asexual reproduction. Once the embryo is in existence, there is no more creation of life. Merely development as in sexual reproduction.
Better to have no law, then the state's explicit imprimatur on human cloning.
But that's why my trade is so much better than the Missouri trade. My trade wouldn't say anything about therapuetic cloning being legal, or giving the explicit imprignatur to therapuetic cloning. My trade would be to give federal recognition to committed same-sex couples in civil unions as if they were marriages.
Most people are in favor of equal benfits and protections for same-sex civil unions, and this would accomplish that, while at the same time prohibiting non egg and sperm conception. Prohibiting non egg and sperm conception is easy, especially if some sort of trade is made that most people also favor. Instead of stem cell research, this trade would be for civil unions.
Stem cell research would not be mentioned, we'll deal with that later.
heh, "imprignatur" was just my tired fingers typing impervious to my will, no pun intended.
And regarding Ludia's point about embryos that have been created, I disagree there too. There is no moral obligation to implant embryos that have been created. Where do you get this idea? Set them free, let them live out the rest of their lives in the wild, like dignified humans. I wasn't allowed to climb back into some willing woman's womb, and I don't see why anybody else should be.
Saying that we have to implant any frankenstein embryo is really bad ethics. If I made a fly/pig/human hybrid embryo, would you insist that it be implanted in some woman that was crazy enough to carry it? The only embryos that have to he allowed to survive are the embryos that are created in sexual intercourse, in an act of mutual consentual conception.
John: The point is to not make cloned embryos.
"Let them live out their lives in the wild, like dignified humans."
You're joking, right?
Are you really unaware that embryos will die quite early on if not implanted?
The equivalent with you or me would have been putting us at birth out into a raging snowstorm with no clothes or out of a plane at 20,000 feet.
Certainly, it is licit and even an excellent idea to _try_ to give any human embryo, however it came into existence, the life support it needs naturally at that time of its development. Why should the way it came into existence mean it has no right to life? I came into existence through the seduction of a young woman by an extremely unpleasant man old enough to be her father. Does this unsavory origin put my right to life in question? It should make no difference how you got here once you're here.
Where'd I get the idea of lauding embryo adoption and opposing laws banning it for cloned embryos? From the idea that an embryo is a human being. I guess that's where we differ.
The entire question with any genuine hybrid chimera that survived its creation (this hasn't happened yet, as present claims of genetic engineering and chimeras do not involve anything this radical) would simply be whether it was a human being as is an ordinary human embryo, however created. Everything else should follow from the answer to that question.
One more point, John, a thought experiment: If an embryo created by cloning could be gestated in an artificial womb up until, say, 17 weeks, where it was doing somersaults, sucking its thumb, and looking for all the world like any other baby, would that make a difference to you? Suppose it was doomed to die at that point in the artificial womb, but technology permitted its being transferred to a human mother to finish its gestation. Would you still say the child had no right to be thus transferred and that such a transfer could be morally banned?
But Wesley, are you confident that we will be able to stop all cloning in time to stop people from conceiving children from cloned or GE'd embryos? If we might not, you should change strategy. If we definitely will, then we should make it clear right now rather than continue to have people researching and believing in something that is not going to be allowed.
What is your proposed law to stop cloning, and would it stop GE'd babies, and how close is it to passing?
I don't think we should play chicken or waste time, when if it was resolved as it should be, it would have such a huge impact on people's rights and lives. We can stop research cloning later. Do you feel that we need the specter of cloned children to stop the creation of cloned embryos?
Lydia, I would oppose letting a cloned embryo gestate and come to term, and don't feel there has ever been a right to go back inside a womb for some more gestation. Why make a new right where there hasn't been one before? Are you going to worry about the millions of embryos that leave the uterus without implanting and try to catch and rescue them?
Of course, once a person has been born, they have full rights and we have an obligation to care for them. But just because it's possible to create embryos in test tubes doesn't mean that we have an obligation to put them in wombs or design artificial wombs.
You didn't answer my question about the rat/pig/human hybrid. Would you feel we had to implant that? How about an embryo with synthesized DNA, or one GE'd from same-sex gametes? I see no obligation to implant any embryo, and think you are making up this right out of thin air, and it is unwise. They want you to have that feeling, they will use it to take advantage.
I should have said, "Of course, once a person has been conceived, they have full rights and we have an obligation to care for them. In otherwords, I don't support abortion. I use the word "conceived" because "conceiving a person" is not the same thing as creating a human embryo. Conceiving a person means thinking of the adult being born. It doesn't even require fertilization to take place.
Thus we could prohibit conceiving a person without affecting the stem cell debate, getting us neatly past the hold up regarding stem cell research witout having to endorse it or legalize it or fund it.
John: I am not confident we will be able to stop any of it. But giving Big Biotech what it wants now with regard to cloning is to give up the whole game.
John, you didn't answer my question about the 17-week unborn child clone sucking his thumb in the artificial womb. Would you support a law that required that he be killed or left to die rather than being transferred to a real womb?
I did answer your question as far as I am able: 1) I strongly suspect that such a chimera is not biologically possible, so your question is rather like asking, "Is it wrong to take Data on Star Trek apart for experimental purposes?" In other words, science fiction, and with the underlying metaphysical assumptions of the example ill-defined. 2) I don't know whether such a chimera would be a human embryo. If not, then it's ethical to destroy it. If so, then it would be a human being, a human child and, yes, it would be right to implant and gestate such a child.
Again, I believe you are asserting the following: If an embryo is produced by cloning, even if it is biologically in itself indistinguishable from one conceived sexually, then the former is not a human being, though the latter is. That's the only way I can explain your position. That's the crux of our difference of opinion, because I believe all human embryos are human beings regardless of the story of their origin.
It is a human being that would have a very short life, like millions of embryos. I wouldn't hesitate to stop an experimental artificial womb pregnancy, I'd go out of my to turn off the machine. Machines are not mothers, and machines should be turned off.
I don't think there should be any outside intervention or effort in conceiving a person, I'm opposed to IVF also. A child should be entirely the conception of a man and a woman alone, consesually and together.
During gestation, we should look after the mother's health, but the baby shouldn't require anything special. Indeed, it is stopping the process that would require special effort.
Creating a chimera is certainly possible, which is why we all strongly oppose creating one. And if one was created, I'd strongly oppose implanting it or any other GE'd or cloned embryo.
I'm opposed to IVF too, would outlaw it if I could, and agree with you about how a child shd. come into existence. Where we part company--quite strongly--is in this: If a child _is_ brought into existence through a wrongful process, the child then exists in fact, and that fact must be faced and dealt with ethically. The child exists at a stage where it needs the life support provided by implantation in order to develop naturally. That's it's natural need at that stage, just as it's the natural need of a newborn to require someone else to feed it. How can it be wrong to give the new human being what it is designed (by God, I might add) to need at that stage of existence? I cannot see that the wrongful circumstances by which a child comes into existence should deprive it of the right to life.
Well, ask God about the millions of embryos that never implant, or that miscarry. They were seeds planted in rocky soil that didn't take root, and God makes more of those than ones that grow.
There is an obligation to care for babies after birth, and an obligation to care for pregnant women and the babies they carry, but there simply isn't a moral obligation to help an embryo that is not in a woman. If it's in a woman, yes, there is an obligation to care for it. But if it isn't, there is an obligation to respect God's plan for all of the seeds, and God's design does not involve embryos living long outside the womb, or getting back in.
Every cell in my body contains a fully human nucleus that need only to be transfered into an egg and implanted, but there is no obligation to do that, is there? It's the same thing.
Well, there we disagree, too. The fact that cloning is possible doesn't change non-embryos (the cells in your body) into embryos. We could say that various elements exist in the earth that could, if they come together, form a cat. But that doesn't mean that the carbon and the nitrogen and so forth in, say, a piece of grass _is_ a cat just because it could form part of one. Skin cells ain't embryos. Embryos made by cloning are embryos. Of course it isn't the same thing. The question is always what sort of entity a thing is.
John:
"Well, ask God about the millions of embryos that never implant, or that miscarry. They were seeds planted in rocky soil that didn't take root, and God makes more of those than ones that grow."
The embryos that never implant or miscarry simply pass away of natural causes like any other person.
I'm posting a little blurb here that explains what a lot of Christians (like me) believe about the unborn and the afterlife. It's not a complaint or anything, it's just to explain why that whole, "Ask God what happens to babies who die unborn" question doesn't bother us, and why we're laid-back about it. You don't have to buy into this - I do, but many other Christians don't. It's just an explanation that makes sense to a lot of us.
From Prophecy Truths:
http://ad2004.com/prophecytruths/Articles/Heaven/heaven3.html
"Many Christians wrongly believe that if a person is not born again while here on earth, they cannot enter heaven! They forget about the perfect mercy, perfect justice, and perfect judgment of God our Father. In heaven are all the aborted babies, children who died when young or at childbirth, and those who died before reaching the full age of comprehension. As mentioned in previous articles on heaven, these categories of people are in heaven in the area around the holy city of Zion called paradise. They are not allowed into the holy city of Zion because they are unprepared, but they are in heaven.
It is most comforting to know that the millions of aborted babies are now in heaven being loved by the inhabitants of heaven and the angels. Countless people on earth, who wrongly terminated the life of a child and later grew to regret that action, can be comforted to know that their child is loved and well-taken care of by those in heaven. These babies in heaven have spiritual bodies of the same age as when they died, but with loving training in heaven, mature into adults there. They are prepared in all areas of spiritual knowledge as part of the maturation process. If you are a Sunday school teacher, Bible study leader, well-informed Christian, pastor, or teacher, you can volunteer to spend time spiritually training the unprepared in heaven. Your skills and knowledge gained and honed here on earth will be enhanced there in heaven, and you can continue in good and charitable works there. Knowing this, Christians here on earth ought to be quick to volunteer for church duties as a Sunday school teacher, Bible study leader, jails & prison ministry volunteer, nursery volunteer, or any of a myriad number of possibilities for service, knowing that it will prepare them for extended service to God our Father in heaven."
Tabs, that makes it a Christian duty to kill everyone before they've had a chance to grow up enough to go to hell. I'm not sure that people should be assured that their baby will go to heaven if they kill it.
I do agree with this: "The embryos that never implant or miscarry simply pass away of natural causes like any other person." That's what I was saying about IVF and cloned embryos, just let them pass away of natural causes. Why implant them where they stand a chance of being born and winding up in Hell?
And Lydia, regarding your cat - you are the one that seems to be saying that, I wouldn't say that elements are a cat, I'd say a cat is a cat. The fact that a baby is possible doesn't change a non-baby (the cells in a test tube) into babies.
I make a big deal about this because you are being set up to help the cloners. They'll just go "oops, we accidentally made some engineered embryos" and then an army of brainwashed women is going to ready to valiantly implant the things for them. That's absolutely misguided, you're being used. There is not and never has been a moral obligation to put embryos that are not in a woman into a woman or grow them in artificial wombs. Let them go to heaven ASAP, if that works for you. This position would not mean you supported abortion, since an embryo in a woman is a different entity, conceptually. It is conceived to be a baby. We don't have to conceive a scientists's product as a baby, just like we don't consider my skin cells to be a baby that only needs to be implanted in an egg, or elements to be a cat that only have to be brought together and made into a cat.
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