Cloning Humans
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into
his
nostrilsthe breath of life; and man became a livingsoul . . . and He took
one of
his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which
the Lord
God had taken from man, made He a woman and brought her unto
man." -Genesis
2:7 21-22 Human cloning is becoming one of the most
controversial topics of our
time. With recent technological breakthroughs,
whole new fields are opening with
amazing possibilities. Despite the great
advantages that cloning can offer
humanity, there are just as many negative
aspects of the technology, which have
given way to large anti-cloning groups
who are gaining ground as to the future
of this awesome power. In truth,
cloning could very well be the best, or worst
thing ever to happen to
mankind. The possibilities of human cloning are vast
indeed, but research in
the area has been dramatically restricted in the United
States and in
some other countries. Pro-life groups that oppose free access to
abortion
have considerable political power, and were able to have all human
embryo
research banned by the Reagan and Bush administrations in most of
the
1980’s and the 1990’s (religoustolerance). Although the ban was
lifted
during the first days of Bill Clinton’s presidency, in 1997 he sent a
bill to
congress marked "immediate consideration and prompt enactment"
stating that
it would be illegal to create a human clone whether in private
or public
laboratories. Along with the US ban, nineteen European countries
including
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy,
Latvia, Luxembourg,
Moldova, Sweden, Macedonia, and Turkey, signed a
protocol that would commit
their countries to ban by law any intervention
seeking to create human beings
genetically identical to another human being,
whether living or dead. It rules
out any exception to the ban, even in the
case of a completely sterile couple.
Britain and Germany however, did not
sign this agreement. Germany claims that
the protocol would be weaker than
the anti-research laws they already have,
while Britain strongly supports
their decision to enforce freedom. French
president Jaques Chirac stated that
"Nothing will be resolved by banning
certain practices in one country if
scientists and doctors can simply work them
elsewhere." Despite all these
obstacles, Dr. Richard Seed, a strong supporter
of human cloning, caused
uproar when he announced his plans to set up a clinic
to clone human babies
for infertile couples (CNN). We may not know the
individual or team who first
performed cloning of human embryos, but the methods
used have been understood
for many years and actually used to clone embryos of
cattle and sheep. It is
likely this has already been successfully used on human
embryos in secret.
Robert J. Stillman and his team at the George Washington
Medical Center
in Washington D.C. took 17 flawed human embryos, which had been
derived from
an ovum that had been fertilized by two sets of sperm resulting in
an extra
set of chromosomes, and dooming the ovum's future. The cells would
have
eventually died no matter how they were treated. Stillman’s experiment
showed
that the best results could be obtained by interrupting the zygote at
the
two-cell stage, separating the cells, and placing them in separate dishes
as to
allow them to begin growing again. Many of these pairs were able to
develop to
the 32-cell stage, but no further. They might have had the
potential to develop
further and even mature into a viable fetus, except the
original ovum was
defective and would have died anyway. For ethical reasons,
the researchers
selected embryos that had no possibility of ever maturing.
The main motive of
the experiment seems to have been to trigger public debate
on the ethics of
human cloning (religioustolerance). Dr. Steven Muller headed
a panel in the US
whose mandate was to produce preliminary cloning
guidelines. These would be used
by the federal National Institute of Health
to decide which cloning research to
fund. The panel recommended that studies
be limited to the use of embryos that
developed during in vitro fertilization
procedures that had been performed to
assist couples in conceiving. Often,
extra zygotes are produced that are either
discarded or frozen for possible
future use. They further recommended that any
studies be terminated within
fourteen days of conception. At that gestational
age, neural cord closure
begins; this is the start the development of nervous
system. The scientific
community had deemed the actual act of cloning a mammal
impossible, until Dr.
Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Roslin, Scotland
achieved it in July of
1996. The success of his experiment was communicated to
the press on February
23rd 1997. "Dolly", a seven month-old sheep, was
displayed to the media; she
was the first large cloned animal using DNA from
another adult. Since Dolly's
conception, the Institute has successfully cloned
seven sheep of three
breeds. The technique that they developed can probably be
applied to other
domesticated mammals. On December 14 1998, researchers at the
infertility
clinic at Kyeonghee University in Korea announced that they had
successfully
cloned a human. Scientists Kim Seung-bo and Lee Bo-yeon took an
ovum from a
woman, removed its DNA and inserted a somatic cell from the same 30
year old
woman into the ovum. Their reports stated: " We were able to
confirm division
up to the fourth cell stage, the stage of embryo development
when a test tube
embryo is usually placed back in the uterus, where it then
further develops
into a fetus." The goal of their research was not to clone
a human, but to
clone specific, genetically identical organs for human
transplant. They did
not implant the clone into a human uterus because of
ethical considerations.
They destroyed it. The Korean Federation for the
Environmental Movement
immediately issued a statement criticizing the study.
Members of the Life
Safety Ethics Association held protest demonstrations in
front of the
University (religioustolerance). Despite popular belief, cloning
has been
used since the early 1950’s by farmers to ensure good crops using a
technique
in which the nucleus of an egg cell is destroyed, and replace it with
a
nucleus from the cell of a higher organism. The egg will then grow into
a
genetic copy of the donor organism. While this process can ensure
crops
identical to a previous harvest, It will not work on mammals, because
of the
tiny size of the eggs (Clone). Possibilities for cloning include such
things as
creating children for infertile couples, harvesting genetic copies
of organs to
avoid rejection by the immune system in transplants, or even
going as far as to
create replacement children for parents who have lost
someone in some sort of
accident. Cloning may even hold the key to a cure
cancer. The materials to
create a laboratory can easily be purchased in most
major countries at a fairly
cheap price. A working cloning facility could be
built in a garage with as
little as $10000. In reality there is no way to
prevent the cloning of a human
being. It would be better for someone, who is
responsible enough to use the
technology intelligently, than for someone to
use the secret of cloning to there
own advantage (Kaku). All in all, human
cloning could possibly be the most
significant event in human history. Should
we take one road to a
totalitarianistic society of genetically engineered
clones like Aldous
Huxley’s Brave New World, or a world in which parents
can create designer
children with the characteristics of their choice as in
the movie "Gattaca"?
The incredible power held within our genes could
possibly lead to a perfect
society where peace and happiness reign supreme,
or it could very well lead to
the destruction of the human race
itself.
Bibliography
http://www.cnn.com. accessed 4-7-99. "19
Europeans Nations Sign Ban on
Human Cloning". Posted January 12, 1998
http://www.cnn.com. accessed 4-7-99.
"Clinton Act Draws Line At Human
Cloning". Posted October 23, 1997 Hartl,
Daniel L. "Clone". World Book
Encyclopedia. 1996. page 685 http://www.humancloning.org.
accessed 9-1-99.
"Human Cloning Foundation". Kaku, Michiu. "Visions".
Anchor Books
DoubleDay. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland.
1997.
http://www.religoustolerance.com/cloning.htm. accessed 9-13-99.
"Cloning".