March 10, 2004
Dear Concerned Citizen,

Human cloning left the realm of science fiction and became cold reality last month. A South Korean team of researchers led by Dr. Hwang Woo Suk of Seoul National University announced that he had successfully created 30 human cloned embryos and developed them to the “blastocyst” stage. (Blastocyst is the scientific name given to a human embryo that has developed for about one week, at which point it becomes implantable in a womb, or can be destroyed and harvested for embryonic stem cells.)

The human cloning technique used by the South Korean team is known as “somatic cell nuclear transfer” (SCNT), the same procedure used to create Dolly the cloned sheep.

Here’s how it works:

• First, the cloner removes the nucleus from a human egg.
• He then takes a somatic cell, say a skin cell, from the DNA donor and removes its nucleus. (All our cells are somatic cells except for testes or ovaries, which are called germ cells.)
• The nucleus from the skin cell is then inserted into the egg.
• The biotechnologist then applies an electrical charge to the genetically modified egg.
• If the cloning works, a new human embryo comes into being, just as if an egg had been fertilized naturally.

The end result of SCNT is the creation of human life.

Cloning advocates often claim that there are two types of cloning, so-called “reproductive cloning,” and “therapeutic cloning.” But this is a false distinction. Performing SCNT is the act of cloning, indeed, the only act of cloning. At that point, the issue isn’t what the embryo is, but what is to be done with the nascent human life that has come into existence.

One potential use for the cloned embryo is to implant it into a womb, for gestation and eventual birth, which is often called “reproductive cloning.” Most scientists and bioethicists claim they oppose reproductive cloning because it wouldn’t be safe. And indeed, almost all animal clones manufactured to date have been defective. For example, Dolly developed early arthritis and other ailments and had to be euthanized after only six years of life.

But scientific opposition to reproductive cloning is actually far less substantial than it appears. Many of these supposed opponents would actually support reproductive cloning if it could be done safely. Indeed, many scientists and bioethicists have stated that cloning should merely be considered a form of assisted reproduction. But reproductive cloning is supremely dehumanizing since it would treat the creation of human life as a matter of mere manufacture. Alarmingly, the very research conducted in South Korea furthers this very outcome, since the first step toward making reproductive cloning a reality is learning how to reliably manufacture cloned human blastocysts.

Morally, therapeutic cloning is even more troubling. Advocates of this approach want to create human life for the purpose of destroying it and harvesting its body parts. This is a tremendous insult to human dignity in that it treats human life as a mere product, akin to penicillin mold, that can be patented, processed, and sold in the marketplace.

Advocates of therapeutic cloning claim their harvesting would be limited to extracting embryonic stem cells from cloned embryos. But their real agenda appears even more radical. New Jersey just passed a law that would permit a human clone to be implanted in a womb and gestated through the ninth month, only outlawing bringing the cloned baby to “the newborn stage.” Or, to put it another way, New Jersey permits human cloning, implantation, and gestation, while also mandating eventual abortion. As far as I know, New Jersey’s statute is the only mandatory abortion law that has been enacted outside of China.

The only appropriate response to these moral outrages is to outlaw all human cloning. Thus, 2004 may be the year that Brave New World becomes an election issue.

The End Of Humanity

In Huxley’s 1932 novel Brave New World he foretold of a Utopian society where human liberty is exchanged for engineered perfection at the hands of a “benevolent” World State. His prophetic work issues a warning against the misuse of science in the hands of techno-utopians.

Huxley's novel reveals the irony that in aspiring to be perfect we risk losing our humanity.

"But I like the inconveniences."

"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom,
I want goodness. I want sin."

"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."

"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."

"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphillis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind." There was a long silence.

"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said.

--from Brave New World

Harvard Bypasses Federal Law With Private Funds

Professor Douglas Melton’s quest to cure his children’s diabetes has been the driving force behind the planned Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

Melton is using private funds to defy the ban on the use of federal funds to manipulate human embryos, except for 64 lines of stem cells already in existence. He hopes to create the largest private stem cell project in America.

Even as alumni arrive at Harvard this month to learn more about this planned institute, Melton has announced that they have already created 17 batches of stem cells from human embryos purchased from Boston IVF Clinic.

While America grapples with the profound ethical implications of destroying one form of human life for the yet unproven benefit of another, Melton and others like him, are moving full steam ahead.

Best of Show Children?

Many people love their retrievers and their sunny dispositions around children and adults. Could people be chosen in the same way? Would it be so terrible to allow parents to at least aim for a certain type, in the same way that great breeders try to match a breed of dog to the needs of a family?"

Gregory Pence, professor of philosophy in the Schools of Medicine and Arts/Humanities at the University of Alabama

Even Huxley Would Be Surprised

"Cloning is inherently despotic, for it seeks to make one's children or someone else's children after one's own image (or an image of one's choosing) and their future according to one's will. In some cases, the despotism may be mild and benevolent, in others, mischievous and downright tyrannical. But despotism, the control of another through one's will, it will unavoidably be."

Leon Kass, professor University of Chicago, Chair, President’s Council on Bioethics.