The Ethics of Human Cloning

June 16, 2011

9 min read

Pro Life

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Prof. Dr John Warwick Montgomery, Esq.
Jay Sekulow, Esq.
Joel Thornton, Esq.

European Centre for Law & Justice, Strasbourg, France

At the moment the United States faces one of the most agonising and crucial ethical issues in the history of medical science: whether to permit experimentation and treatment by way of embryo research. Recent developments in the British and European context can perhaps assist the American executive to arrive at a proper position vis--vis this phenomenon.


(1) The Nature of Human Cloning

What, precisely, is being proposed in the cloning debate? The following helpful summary appears in a recent publication of a British lawyers' society:

Cloning is carried out by a process known as "cell nuclear replacement." The nucleus of a human egg cell is removed and replaced with the nucleus from a cell of the animal from which, or of the person from whom, the 'clone' is to be produced. The cell is then artificially stimulated so that it begins to develop into an embryo in the same way that a fertilised egg develops. . . .

The grim reality is that both reproductive and therapeutic cloning involve the creation of new human beings, who, being very small and at an early stage of development, should be accorded the extra special protection of the law. The only difference between therapeutic and reproductive cloning is that, in the former, the human embryo is broken up at an early stage, when he or she is known as a "blastocyst." . . . At this stage the cells are "undifferentiated," but thereafter, if they are allowed to develop, the cells in the blastocyst will begin to develop into different organs, some developing into bone or liver or skin, and so on.


See appended summary of current European national and community law.

What scientists wish to do is to take these "stem cells" from a broken-up blastocyst and experiment on them to see if they can encourage these individual cells to grow into particular types of tissue which might possibly, so they claim, be used to replace or repair damaged tissue in an older patient. . . .

Some may think that in many respects therapeutic cloning is even more barbarous than reproductive cloning since it involves deliberately tearing to pieces a specially created human embyro.

What is being advocated, therefore, is the use of specially created, cloned embryos as sources of stem cells for the treatment of various medical conditions, including heart failure and, in particular, Parkinson's disease-even though in principle such cells can also be harvested without the destruction of embryos from umbilical cord blood or in the very near future from adult bone marrow or blood.

Unless anti-rejection drugs are used, the body rejects cells taken from someone else. Thus, in short, those favouring cloning propose that clones of the patient himself or herself be allowed to live for a short time as a source of matched stem cells. Normally, some six cloned and aborted fetuses are required to yield enough cells for a single patient.

(2) The Recent Decision of the British Parliament

On 22 January 2001, the House of Lords, by a majority of 120, approved the therapeutic cloning of human embryo cells no older than fourteen days, thereby legalising such research in the United Kingdom. In a December session of the House of Commons, MPs had passed the cloning bill by a free vote supporting (366 to 174) an amendment to the British Human Fertilisation and Embryo Act. Labour's Public Health Minister, Ms Yvette Cooper, in defending the cloning bill in the Commons, distinguished stem-cell cloning from reproductive cloning (in which the embryo is allowed to develop into a baby, and which remains illegal in the United Kingdom). She maintained that the new law did not constitute an ethical "slippery slope" and that "there are immense potential benefits from allowing this research to go ahead, particularly for those suffering from dreadful chronic diseases."

By no means were all of the Parliamentarians convinced. Dr Fox, a former general practitioner, spoke for many when he declared: "Medical revolution carries with it moral, ethical and philosophical consequences and our ability to deal with these matters sometimes lags behind our technical knowledge. Just because we can do something does not mean that we have to. We need to establish a clear framework within which to operate."

What in fact are the "moral, ethical and philosophical consequences" of stem-cell embryo research, and what can the United States learn from the British and the European attitudes toward it?

Association of Lawyers for the Defence of the Unborn, News and Comment, No. 88 (Winter 2000/2001).
The Times [London], 24 January 2001.


(3) The Arguments Pro and Con

On the positive side, the argument is very straightforward. Proponents of the use of embryos to obtain stem-cells argue for the unique medical value which will allegedly follow from such research in the treatment and cure of intractable ailments, principally Parkinson's disease. Any moral difficulties attendant on such research are met with "lesser of evils" utilitarian reasoning: human misery will be lessened as a direct result of allowing research to done involving embryos which have not yet developed recognisably human features such as a central nervous system.

Negatively, there are a plethora of arguments ranging from weak to very powerful against the proposed embryo research. These deserve the most careful attention, particularly by statesmen in a position to determine national policy.

The Times [London], 20 December 2000.
As will be seen from the Appendix to this paper, the European nations do not take a uniform position on the cloning issue. A "liberal" approach characterises not only Britain but also Denmark, Finland, Greece, and the Netherlands; Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, and Sweden treat the matter in a mediating fashion; Portugal has not yet arrived at any national view; and Austria, Germany, and Ireland ban such research entirely.

The Luddite Argument. It is maintained by some that to engage in any embryonic research is to fly in the face of Nature, which must remain inviolate. The problem here, to be sure, is that virtually all scientific and medical research has modified that natural state of affairs in one way or another. It would be most unfortunate if the case against stem-cell embryo research were to take on the character of those who held, in the early days of aviation, that "if the Lord has wanted us to fly, he would have put wings on our backs." From the religious viewpoint, it appears that mankind is to "subdue the earth", not succumb to it. The issue, then, is not the avoidance of new research techniques, but a determination of what kind of "subduing" of nature is proper, and what improper.

The Slippery Slope Argument. Must stem-cell embryo research lead inevitably to reproductive cloning and to the Frankenstein monster scenarios often painted by journalists? The answer is, simply, that we do not know. In theory, it should be possible by carefully drawn legislation to carve out permissible, as opposed to illegitimate, areas of research in this area. At the same time, hardly had the British Parliament passed its new law but a team of Italian research scientists announced (9 March 2001) that they are ready to proceed with the cloning of babies. But the issue is not what might transpire in the future; it is whether the use of embryos to provide stem cells in the present is desirable or undesirable.

The Right-to-Life Argument. Analysts of the embryo research issue have consistently pointed out its connection with legalised abortion. "The context of experimentation on the human fetus is plainly provided by liberal abortion. . . . That liberalisation both made fetuses more widely available and, more important, marked a change in the public (and medical) perception of the fetus." Indeed, "it has been argued (with some reason) that for a society which allows the abortion of the maturing fetus on (often) trivial grounds to object to the careful experimental use of the zygote is both illogical and hypocritical."

It is also worth emphasising that those who disagree with embryro research of the kind approved by the British Parliament are not in any way compelled to fight against the Human Genome Project and similar efforts to understand more fully the human makeup. Francis Collins, the world leader of the Genome Project, has stated that in his view the Project is engaged in no less a task than the mapping of Divine Creation.

The fundamental question, therefore-as uncomfortable as it may be-turns on the nature of the embryo. Even prior to 14 days of its existence, what precisely do we have here? Tissue and no more than tissue, or a human being? If the former, experimentation on it may well be not only permissible but in fact a societal duty; if the latter, such research takes on an entirely different moral character. So which view is correct? This will depend squarely on one's definition of "human", or, more precisely, on whether one['s] defines the human being by his or her genetic-chromosomal makeup or by some functional criterion.

For the functionalist, one is human only and insofar as one functions humanly-and the young embryo does not so function. The most influential advocate of this viewpoint at the moment is philosopher Michael Tooley, who asserts: "An entity cannot be a person unless it possesses, or has previously possessed, the capacity for thought. And the psychological and neurophysiological evidence makes it most unlikely that humans, [even] in the first few weeks after birth, possess this capacity."

But if genetic-chromosomal makeup is insufficient to define the human being and to justify according to him or her human value, worth, and protection, who precisely has the right to establish the additional, functional criteria? And who is to say if the candidate functions well enough to deserve to be treated as a human being? Tooley, a philosopher, declares that to be human one must think. But why use thinking ability alone? What about job skills and other socially useful attributes? Social planners have long been disturbed by the need to support social misfits. Nazi eugenics and concentration camp medical experimentation were based on precisely such a philosophy. And note the applications of this approach to the end of life-when the (former?) person loses his ability to function productively. Since decisions in areas like this gravitate almost inevitably to government and political decision-making, Huxley's Brave New World raises its ugly head. Not only the fetus but also the handicapped and the aged suddenly find themselves in jeopardy-as well as all those whose activity does not conform to current societal or political standards.

Nigel M. de S. Cameron, "Man As Experimental Subject: Embryo Research and Its Context," in Ian L. Brown and Nigel Cameron (eds.), Medicine in Crisis (Edinburgh, Scotland: Rutherford House, 1988), p. 52.
Id. at 42. The same point has been made by Sir John Peel in his essay, "After the Embryo the Fetus?", in Nigel M. de S. Cameron (ed.), Embryos and Ethics (Edinburgh, 1987).
Michael Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 421. Also: Helga Kuhse, The Sanctity-of-Life Doctrine in Medicine: A Critique (Oxford: Clarendon Press, l987).

May we suggest that humans do not become such by acting in a human way: they act (occasionally!) in a human way because they are first of all human. And when do they begin being human? When they acquire the genetic-chromosomal character of humans, and that occurs-if it occurs at all-at the moment of conception. One of Europe's foremost microbiologists put it this way:

The first cell [formed by sperm-and-egg union] is already the embryo of an autonomous living being with individual hereditary patrimony, such that if we knew the nature of the spermatozoid and the chromosomes involved, we could already at that point predict the characteristics of the child, the future colour of his hair, and the illnesses to which he would be subject. In his mother's womb, where he will grow, he will not accept everything she brings to him, but only that which is necessary to his existence: thereby he will realise his hereditary patrimony. In that first cell the profound dynamism and the precise direction of life appears. . . . In spite of its fragility and its immense needs, an autonomous and genuinely living being has come into existence. . . . It is rather surprising to see certain physicians speak here of "potential life" as if the fertilised egg began its real life when it nests in the uterus. Modern biology does not deny the importance of nidation, but it sees it only as a condition-indispensable, to be sure-for the development of the embryo and the continuation of a life already in existence.

See John Warwick Montgomery, Slaughter of the Innocents (Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1981); Human Rights and Human Dignity (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: Canadian Institute for Law, Theology and Public Policy, 1987); and his essay, "Abortion and the Law: Three Clarifications," in Hilgers, Horan, and Mall (eds.), New Perspectives on Human Abortion (Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, l981), pp. 281-92.
John Warwick Montgomery, "Whose Life Anyway? Re-Examining Suicide and Assisted Suicide," 1/2 Nexus [Chapman University School of Law, Anaheim, California] 74-92 (Fall, 1996).
Jules Carles [French National Centre for Scientific Research], La Fcondation (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967), pp. 81-82. Our translation; author's italics.

But if the embryo, from the moment of conception, is indeed a genuine human being, then the experimental use of that entity-even for the high purpose of benefiting others medically-must be regarded as a legal offence to the person and thereby ethically repellent.

The Dignity of the Human Person Argument. Even if one is unwilling to take the eminently logical and scientific position that the embyro is in fact a human being and therefore deserving of legal protection, there is strong reason to oppose fetal experimentation. "While opposition to the use of the human embryo for purposes of deleterious research has largely come from those who regard the human embryo as a human person, it should be noted that the minority on the [British] Warnock Committee who dissented from any experimental use of the embryo did not do so on that ground. Theirs was a more limited case. . . . The potential character of the early embryo, as forerunner of the personal human being, is-it can be argued-itself sufficient reason to grant it respect and protection."

There is no way to deny that if the embryo is allowed to develop naturally the result will be an additional person on the planet. It follows that every embryo used for medical experimentation destroys human life. And it should be kept in mind that, just as the successfully cloning of the sheep Dolly required a long series of failures, so (as pointed out earlier) it requires at least six aborted fetuses to provide enough stem cells to treat a single patient. "Man's abuse of his own kind for experimental purposes must rank as the most dreadful of all his abuses of himself. The disinterested character of (some of) those involved, far from lessening and justifying what they do, serves to heighten its significance by underlining the degradation to which man is putting his fellow, treating as a mere laboratory artefact one who bears the divine image."

Cameron, "Man As Experimental Subject" (op. cit.), pp. 42-43.
Id at 55.

This was essentially the position of the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament in 1990. The Committee chairman, German Euro-MP Willi Rothley

maintained that fertilised human eggs already had "human potential" although he acknowledged that EC member states had been unable to define whether the embryo is a legal entity. He asserted: "The use of human embryos for research purposes which deny their human nature and subject them to arbitrary goals is an infringement of the dignity of man. The freedom to carry out research may also conflict with the right of a person to self?determination. . . . A human can never be a thing, but will always have a personality. The underlying principle of our legal and political system places an absolute prohibition on one person being at the total disposal of another. It must also be the primary consideration when assessing research on embryos.

The Committee's Italian vice-chairman, Carlo Casini, took an even stronger position: "Human life begins, without doubt, from fertilisation, and develops without any qualitative leaps in a continuous process until death." The negative stance of this Committee was in sharp contrast to the British approach, as reflected in the Warnock report which laid the basis for the current permissive British legislation.

But what about the utilitarian claim that, after all, embryos without consciousness and incapable of pain are able to assist in the curing of diseases which shorten the lives and reduce the quality of life of suffering adults? The answer to this is that (in the felicitous expression used by legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin and many other critics of utilitarianism) fundamental human rights "trump" the use of humans as means to others' ends.

It is never right to hurt one human, without his or her permission, to reduce the difficulties of another. The classic analogy is that of the "eye bank." Suppose eye transplants became possible: would it then be legitimate, on utilitarian and democratic grounds, to force those with two eyes to undergo the removal of one of their eyes so as to give sight to the totally blind? Of course not; the very idea is monstrous and an affront to the dignity of the person. But stem-cell embryo research proposes exactly this kind of activity: the life of the unborn (whether regarded as human or potentially human) is sacrificed without personal consent for the benefit of other persons. Surely a civilised society must avoid at all costs such a denigration of the human being. People-no matter how young and undeveloped-must not be reduced to means for the sake of others' ends, or respect for human life in general will be so diminished that no-one will be safe from majoritarian tyranny.

Arthur Rogers and Denis Durand de Bousingen, Bioethics in Europe (Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe Press, l995), pp. 56-57.

The Argument from Human Ignorance. In his fine book defending right-to-life, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, President Ronald Reagan spoke to those who are agnostic as to the nature of the fetus and who base their willingness to abort on this lack of knowledge. His point applies in every respect to the issue we are addressing here. President Reagan posed the situation in which he is out hunting and sees something at a distance which might or might not be another hunter. Would he be right to fire his gun, on the chance that it is a deer? The answer, of course, is CERTAINLY NOT. In cases of ignorance as to whether we might kill a human being, we do not take that chance. To do so would be criminal negligence at best and, more likely, culpable manslaughter on the ground of sheer recklessness. Even if we are not sure whether the embryo fully qualifies as a human person, any doubt must be resolved in the direction of the human, and therefore nothing must be done which could result in harm to a possible human subject.

The Alternative Means Argument. Even if one concedes that presently intractable human ills could conceivably be ameliorated by stem-cell embryo research, this fact in itself would not necessarily justify such research activity. Since it is unarguable that there is irreversible harm to the fetus produced by such research, its justification would only be possible in principle if it could be shown that no other, less harmful means is available to bring about the same benefits. Ethically and practically, no-one could seriously support a more harmful over a less harmful remedy for the same disease! What is the situation in this instance? In point of fact, stem cells do not have to be obtained from embryos. They can at present be harvested from umbilical cords at birth, and, according to the best scientific opinion, in a very few years they will readily be able to be obtained from adult bone marrow or blood.

The Unknown Danger Argument. In spite of admittedly overblown journalistic characterisations of cloning as the prelude to the creation of Frankenstein monsters, the fact is that animal cloning has on occasion produced bizarre and frightening genetic results. We simply do not know what may be the consequences of meddling with the human genetic makeup. Fear of the unknown ought not to deter scientific progress-but where the very nature of the human being is in the balance the greatest caution should surely be exercised. Mistakes here could produce the most terrible of consequences.

Moreover, it has been assumed in all the arguments in behalf of legalising stem-cell embryo research that this scientific activity will in fact produce positive medical benefits. It now appears that this is not at all necessarily the case. Our ignorance in this area is evidently far greater than anyone had imagined. The esteemed New England Journal of Medicine has just reported that "a carefully controlled study that tried to treat Parkinson's disease by implanting cells from aborted fetuses into patients' brains not only failed to show an overall benefit but also revealed a disastrous side effect." In some 15 percent of the patients, the implantations produced uncontrollable movement ("writhing, twisting, jerking"); moreover, there is no way to deactivate or remove the transplanted cells.

Dr Paul E. Greene, a neurologist at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, was reported as saying, "It was tragic, catastrophic, a real nightmare. And we can't selectively turn it off." His conclusion: "No more fetal transplants." Dr William Weiner, the director of the Maryland Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorder Centre now says: "If a patient came to him today seeking advice, he would say, 'The bottom line is that human fetal cell transplants are not currently the best way to go. . . . My advice is you ought not to do this.'"

The New York Times, 8 March 2001. The original research report appeared as "Transplantation of Embryonic Dopamine Neurons for Severe Parkinson's Disease," under the joint authorship of Curt R. Freed, Paul E. Greene, Robert E. Breeze, Wei-Yann Tsai, William DuMouchel, Richard Kao, Sandra Dillon, Howard Winfield, Sharon Culver, John Q. Trojanowski, David Eidelberg, and Stanley Fahn (344/10 New England Journal of Medicine [8 March 2001]).

As a result of this horrendous setback in his research, Dr Curt R. Freed of the Colorado Health Sciences Centre in Denver, one of the two directors of the failed project, is now "implanting less fetal tissue and putting the tissue in a different area of the brain." And yet he says that "it would be a mistake to stop doing the surgery altogether: to say that you can't do or shouldn't do human research because the research has uncertain outcomes, I think would be a bad decision."

(4) Conclusion

We profoundly disagree. Human cloning for the purpose of stem-cell embryo research (a) is an affront to human dignity, (b) is not the only means of achieving its proponents' purposes, (c) is not well enough understood to be trusted as a curative mechanism, and (d) appears to carry with it the most dangerous and irreversible side-effects and may not in fact have any significant curative properties. Responsible governments should outlaw it and devote national resources to medical activity not saddled with the enumerated devastating disadvantages.

We conclude with a letter published in the London Times during the controversy over this issue in Great Britain. It was written by religious leaders but expresses (or should express) the concerns of all citizens who respect human life and responsible medical treatment.

While the end-research into new treatments for disease using stem cells-is good in itself, the means being proposed are quite immoral. To create and destroy human lives simply to extract cells for research is wrong. Such procedures use human lives as disposable objects.

Such research is also unnecessary. Recent advances in stem cell research from adults are proving highly promising. A large body of scientists acknowledge that it is not possible at present to say whether embryonic or adult stem cells will ultimately prove to be of greater value therapeutically.

In these circumstances, is it not better to concentrate on research which can command wide public acceptance and support, rather than blaze a trail that is morally unacceptable and may well prove to be scientifically unnecessary?

And, may we add-positively harmful?

 

Cf. Leon Kass, "The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why We Should Ban the Cloning of Humans," in Glenn McGee (ed.), The Human Cloning Debate (Berkeley, California: Berkeley Hills Books, 2000).

The Times [London], 14 December 2000.

HUMAN CLONING REGULATION IN EUROPE refered to in summary in footnote 1 of the Ethics