The ethics of human cloning

By Chloe Huen | Illustration by Isabelle Zee | Layout by Shuwen Wen

It was six years before Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, passed away- but what if it had been a human? Cloning is the process that produces an identical copy of an organism which has the exact genetic material of the original. However, although cloning is viewed by the public as something unnatural and apocalyptic, cloning is not limited to laboratory based research, as natural cloning can often occur in plants or single celled organisms. For instance, many bacteria that reproduce asexually, create genetically idential daughter cells from the parent organism. In fact, monozygotic twins are an example of natural cloning, where the two embryos contain almost perfectly identical DNA.

Artificial cloning is split into three parts: gene cloning, therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning. Gene cloning is controlled very rigorously in laboratory environments, where copies of genes in bacteria, viruses or yeast cells are created for further study. On the other hand, the use of therapeutic cloning has increased in the field of medicine in order to create genetically identical stem cells to replace injured, diseased or dead tissue in humans. By creating stem cells or tissue that match the patient, this match reduces the risk of rejection which can happen if the immune system attacks donor stem cells.

Instead of producing copies of single cells or simple organisms, reproductive cloning is able to produce genetically identical copies of whole animals. To do this, scientists take the DNA from an original organism’s somatic cell and insert it into an egg cell which has had its DNA removed- this can be done by using electrical current or injection. A historical event of the scientific world, was when The Roslin Institute successfully produced Dolly by cloning an adult sheep. Scientists were ecstatic because this opened a door for producing genetically modified livestock, or bringing back extinct species. Nevertheless, there proved to be many negative consequences to this process as Dolly only survived for six and a half years (half the lifespan of normal sheep) before being euthanized due to a variety of complications, such as Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus, arthritis and a lung tumour. Analysis of Dolly’s DNA showed that her telomeres were half the size of a regular sheep of her age because the DNA was copied from an adult sheep, providing a potential reason for her premature death as Dolly’s DNA was double her actual age. Telomeres protect DNA from damage, and as the individual ages, the telomeres shorten and their protective properties begin to deteriorate.

The creation of Dolly sparked a lot of debate regarding reproductive cloning, and whether this should be investigated due to ethical issues and physical effects on the clone. The public were divided between whether human cloning would ever occur, arguing about the prospect of bringing back extinct species, and the scientific community saw the cloning of Dolly as a catalyst for numerous developments in medicine and biology, creating more personalised treatments for patients through the cloning of entire organs. While the advantages cloning could provide were very clear, cloning was still not encouraged and even banned in certain countries due to arguments in regards to the ethical concerns of the process if it were to be utilised on humans.

Ethics in scientific research are of the utmost importance because science should be aimed towards discovering truthful findings and helping to improve the quality of life for humans. Following ethical guidelines in scientific investigations will help to ensure that the knowledge gained is reliable and was safely produced adhering to basic moral and social principles. Furthermore, with ethical scientific research, the general public would be more accepting of the findings and willing to participate in scientific research such as clinical trials.

Recently, German scientists from the Ludwig-Maximilians University have planned to clone and breed genetically modified pigs to use during human heart transplant surgeries. After performing this surgery on a terminally ill man, it was found that the patient responded well to receiving the heart which demonstrates how valuable cloning could be to the human race and organ transplantation. There are many people on the organ transplant list which unfortunately do not survive the wait, and cloning animal organs would help to reduce the patients on this list. However, this research received criticism from a German pressure group called “Doctors Against Animal Experiments” who claimed this process was unethical as “Animals should not serve as spare parts for humans”.

Cloning is neutral in terms of ethics, which can be seen from its natural occurrences, but due to the rapidly developing technology of humans and scientific discoveries, cloning has been placed in the hands of humans rather than the natural world. This means the ethics behind how and what cloning is used for now predominantly depends on us. One of the major ethical considerations as to why human cloning is not supported by majority of the world population, is because it removes the natural and “human” aspects of the reproduction process while also presenting a large risk of premature death. Through the use of cloning, parents would be able to cherry pick characteristics, visual traits or skills which they would want their child to have which is morally troubling as this leads to the issue of “designer children”. Being able to choose eye colour, sex, abilities and so on with the ease of picking out accessories in a shop would lead humans to see children as possessions or “projects” and would eventually result in creating children only of a certain kind. This would distort the relationship between the parent and the child, as asexual reproduction does not have the same intimacy as natural reproduction. Furthermore, an advertisement for a couple seeing an egg donor appeared in the Harvard university newspaper, and it was found that they had very specific specifications for the donor in terms of height, appearance and athletic abilities, which supports the idea that humans have ideals of a perfect child and cloning would give them the opportunity to pursue this.

Moreover, it needs to be considered whether seeking human egg cells and the use of embryos is justifiable for scientific research regarding cloning. Exploiting women to obtain a large quantity of egg cells for research is a complicated process, as in addition to the few mature egg cells produced during a monthly cycle, stimulation medication must also be given to increase the number of produced egg cells. According to an article from Scientific American, there have been studies which correlate these stimulation medications with a higher risk for ovarian cancer and complications such as bleeding that can arise from the surgeries done to retrieve the eggs. Similarly to how children would be seen as commodities, paying women for their eggs would also result in the same conclusion, as this would cause the scientific community to objectify women into purely their reproductive material. During the embryo stage of early development, critical organs begin to form which provides a sign of human life.n terms of cloning research done using embryos, this will inevitably result in the destruction of the embryo, which many people view as equivalent to killing a living baby.

It is our responsibility to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of cloning, acknowledging factors such as its influence on the natural order of reproduction or commodification of human beings, instead of having tunnel vision in regards to developing technology and science as rapidly as possible. The effects and principles behind human cloning can have dire consequences- and cloning, akin to many aspects of technology and science, is now entirely in the hands of humans. 校話 期刊26 75