Caz
Last Chance Saloon
Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 836
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 Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject: Human Cloning for Reproduction |
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| Quote: | | However uncomfortable I am with reproductive cloning, it can potentially be used as another way in which some couples can surmount barriers to having children. And as such, I'm not sure I can condemn those who would choose it, if it were an option. |
http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/S/science/medicine/news_rep roductive.html
| Quote: | Cloning Ourselves – Ethical Dilemmas
Original article by Dr Adam Hedgecoe
To date, Kentucky fertility specialist Dr Panayiotis Zavos is closer than anyone to producing a baby by cloning. He has a cloned human embryo, 10 cells big, sitting in a freezer, waiting to be implanted into a receptive womb. Is Dr Zavos a caring doctor pulling out the stops to treat his infertile patients, or is he a self-centred maverick who will stop at nothing to achieve fame and fortune? As the cloning pioneers appear to make headway, the ethical issues involved are closing in on us.
If reproductive cloning becomes a real possibility, without risk to foetus and mother, there will still be a number of ethical arguments to tackle.
Harm to the clone
The 'harm to the clone' argument claims that the cloned child is at high risk of being psychologically damaged by growing up as a clone, and as such shouldn't be created. But does it make sense to prevent a clone from being created for its own sake? If the cloning doesn't take place, the clone will never exist. Can a decision that prevented my birth benefit me? If the harm argument is to hold water, then the cloned individual must be faced with a life so bad that it would have been better for it never to have been born.
One way that a cloned child might be 'harmed' is through the burden of over-expectation. As the parent of a cloned child, it would be very difficult not to make comparisons between the clone and the cloned. Particularly as the clone is likely to resemble the cloned. Many believe this to be an unfair burden to place on any child. Consider also that in some cases a child clone could be the identical twin of his father – no-one knows what the psychological effects of being a younger version of one's father might be.
Perhaps the only way this could be settled would be by monitoring how clones develop through their lives. A rather long-term and an ethically dubious project, however.
Human dignity
It's often suggested that cloning is an assault on human dignity. But what exactly this means isn't always clear: what is the measure of dignity? Some critics respond that human dignity is illustrated by the work of the 18th and early 19th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. He claimed that morality should be decided by a 'categorical imperative.' He says we should treat other people as 'ends in themselves rather than as a means to an end.' In other words, we shouldn't see other people purely in terms of what they can provide us with: each person should be treated with individual respect.
This sounds fine, but does it relate to cloning? Presumably, the assumption is that the clone will have been generated as a means to an end, rather than as an end in itself. But what of the motivations of people who want children the old-fashioned way? Does everyone who has children do so for the sake of the child, rather than to satisfy some internal desire? While the point may be valid, it doesn't seem specific to cloning.
Perhaps the argument applies to egocentric reasons for cloning, as that seems to be largely motivated by selfish curiosity or narcissism. But infertility reasons are harder to criticise in this way, after all, the couples would presumably use conventional methods if they could. As for replacement reasons, we don't regard couples who lose a child and then have another by conventional means, as unethical. We might want these people to get over the loss first, to have the new child 'for the right reasons' (whatever they may be), but we don't condemn their wishes wholesale. However, we might say that a replacement clone can never be 'for the right reasons' since the decision is bound up with the past, with grief and loss. But is this a reasonable moral objection?
Either way, such a child is no less likely be wanted and loved than the children from other new reproductive techniques like IVF (in vitro fertilisation – test tube babies) or from conventionally conceived offspring. Indeed, research suggests there are no negative psychological effects on children born by IVF.
The human dignity argument isn't terribly convincing: it's too vague. It gains a bit of intellectual bite when stripped down to its Kantian core, but it only seems to be of real use in helping us learn how to treat people who are actually around us. When it comes to reproduction, Kant's thoughts seem to apply to anyone who considers having a child, by whatever means.
Yuk factor
The yuk factor relies upon emotional rather than intellectual appeal. The term was coined in the mid-1990s during the debate on the use of foetal ovarian tissue in infertility treatment. It states that strong feelings of repugnance in reaction to a new technology signal an issue that should be examined.
Leon Kass, Head of the US Presidents Council on Bioethics, believes that these reactions (which he calls the 'wisdom of repugnance') 'come both from the man or woman in the street and from the intellectuals, from believers and atheists, from humanists and scientists.' They express a form of ethical opinion that in certain cases 'is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason's power fully to articulate it.'
The trouble with the yuk factor is that what people consider to be yuk varies according to social situation. There are many practices that we currently accept as ethically sound, but that would be regarded with revulsion in another time and place. For example, mixed-race marriage was viewed with disgust by many white South Africans during apartheid. Homosexual relationships were repugnant to large sections of the British population until quite recently – and still are to some people. How do we decide which yuk reactions indicate valid moral positions and which are simply temporary prejudices or squeamishness?
Supporters of the yuk factor accept this ambiguity but insist that these feelings are still an acceptable guide to right and wrong. But this means the yuk reaction is merely a moral indicator of a matter we should investigate, and not in itself an argument against cloning.
Right to an open future
American political philosopher Joel Feinberg coined the term 'the right to an open future'. It's the idea that by having some prior knowledge of how a cloned child will turn out in life, the parents are likely to restrict the development of the child, by exerting an unnatural influence over the child's life choices. For instance, if the original child was no good at sport, the implication is that the mark II child wont be either. Consequently, the parents are less likely to support their mark II child's desire to play football. Hence, mark II child doesn't have an open future – so the argument goes.
But all parents limit their children's options in some ways. So is there a moral difference between stopping a child staying up late for common sense reasons and stopping a cloned child from playing sport because they are expected to be poor at it?
Being a clone means you might have some knowledge of your genetic destiny. A clone might have an idea what they will look like at various stages in their life, what ailments they will be susceptible to and what temperament they are inclined to. This could lead to self-limiting behaviour in the cloned person. Again, not an open future.
The author of this article is a bioethicist who sits uneasily with the idea of cloning, as many of us do, but is quick to point out that we may be on a sticky wicket:
'In my opinion, the 'right to an open future argument' (even with its faults) is the strongest argument against reproductive cloning. Yet at the same time we live in a society that values having children of our own; a society that already permits expensive and extreme medical interventions to allow people to fulfil their desires. However uncomfortable I am with reproductive cloning, it can potentially be used as another way in which some couples can surmount barriers to having children. And as such, I'm not sure I can condemn those who would choose it, if it were an option.' |
Last edited by Caz on Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:14 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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