Intro to Bioethics of Human Cloning, Silver 106

We'll be reading a chapter from Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform the American Family by Dr. Silver of Princeton University. See his bio sketch and website here.


First, here is a diagram of what human cloning through "nuclear transplantation" would entail.



Also, here's a page with a 5 min. video about the ethical issues of cloning humans.

Here's a 6 min. video of Silver talking about his views of the possibility of cloning and the legitimacy of experimenting with embryos (cells are not life). The original source of the video is not clear. Discovery Channel?



Here's Silver in a debate at Boston University regarding Human Cloning.



Summary of Silver p.1-6
Silver starts by telling the story of Dolly the Sheep and how the announcement of her cloning in 1997 shocked the world. The general public and many types of experts opposed the notion of human cloning and funding for cloning research was withdrawn from Ian Wilmut. Silver predicts that human cloning will become possible in the future, but the question is whether it will be safe or not. Then he goes on to explain that cloning single-cell organisms and vegetables is easy, but cloning animals is more difficult because adult cells are already differentiated into skin, bones, heart, brain and other organs. However, the technique of nuclear transplantation, which was used with Dolly allows biologists to remove the nucleus of an adult cell and transplant it into an egg. (See the diagram above) This was first successful with frog eggs in the 1960s, but was considered impossible with mammals until Dolly.

Critical Reactions / Discussion Questions (4 in total):

1. He writes on page 3 that "the demand for cloning from individuals and couples is sure to be stronger than ICSI (In vitro fertilization)" but I wonder why he thinks so. Is it because cloned children will be able to avoid genetic abnormalities such as Down's Syndrome?
   
   
2. On p.5, he reports that "WE blamed mother nature herself" for the difficulty of cloning adult DNA. I wonder how widespread that belief or assumption was. Did scientists really feel that something superstitious like mother nature was interfering?
   
   
3. My main discussion question, naturally, is "Should cloning be allowed if it is safe in the future?" My personal answer to this, at this point, is that we should allow it as a choice for infertile couples, respecting their autonomy. Frankly, it is probably unstoppable because doctors will provide it once the technology exists, so it may be better to allow it and regulate it. I don't see much harm compared to natural reproduction. Clones are just latter day twins, aren't they? Most counterarguments sound like fear of the unknown rather than any definitely predictable detriment or rights violation.
   
   
4. Another discussion question I hope we will discuss is whether a cloned human, if born, should be treated differently than a naturally reproduced human. I strongly believe that the cloned person should be treated exactly the same.

What do you think?