John Whitehead's Commentary
Loving Clones for Clones' Sake
From the land that gave us Dolly the cloned sheep comes news that British scientists will be permitted by law to clone human embryos for the express purpose of conducting experiments with their stem cells. Under the new regulations, any embryos created must be destroyed after 14 days, and any creation of babies remains outlawed.
Not long ago, the world marveled--either in admiration or horror, depending on one's perspective--at the news that scientists had cloned monkeys. The story brought to mind Darwin's evolutionary tree: first monkeys, then man. Many observers saw this development as the missing link in the growing chain that would couple man with cloning.
The British vote has removed any question about the ultimate end of this chain. The mere nuisance of a continuing ban on cloning babies themselves is almost certain to be either ignored or overturned by the sheer force of the momentum of science. At some point in the very near future, an embryo will be allowed to live past two weeks, to grow and develop, and will be revealed to the world at some time after birth.
However, not only does the British law open the door to state-sanctioned human cloning, it also endorses an even more pernicious evil: it allows scientists to create life and then destroy it. Frozen embryos have been destroyed for years in fertility clinics when the parents for which they were intended either successfully gave birth or ran out of money. This has been one of the truly great tragedies of our time.
But at least those embryos were created with the intention of being nurtured and brought to term by loving parents. They certainly weren't created with a predetermined two-week life span, their only purpose to provide fodder for a lab technician's experimental fancies.
If anything, this limited purpose supports a principal argument that those who oppose cloning have advanced since Dolly appeared--that cloned humans will be treated as less than human, even as a sort of spare parts factory for their clone "fathers" or "mothers." The first state-sanctioned, cloned human life will do just that--create clones for the sole purpose of contributing to the life enhancement of those already living.
A recent Wired report on human cloning sheds light on the events in Britain in two ways. First, it confirms what the new British law implicitly suggests, namely that human cloning is right around the corner. The magazine found able and willing scientists with clients who are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to create clones of either themselves or other family members.
Secondly, the Wired report reveals that many of the persons most interested in cloning are motivated by the loss of someone close to them, often either a son or daughter who died through accident or disease. In this way, then, cloning is not just another fertility treatment, a unique albeit controversial method for allowing barren couples to bring a child into the world that shares their genetic code. Rather, it is a method for furthering the life of another.
In this way, it mirrors the developments in Britain where they want to further the life of others by contributing to revolutionary stem cell research. In the rest of the world, cloning advocates want to further the life of another by recapturing in some way a life that has been lost -- a life that they believe they can re-ignite in some way through cloning.
This final point is perhaps the most crucial of all because it gets to the heart of the cloning issue. The essence of the problem is that cloning cheapens humanity by removing the individualism that makes each of us unique--the Divine spark, as some would assert, that each of us is created in God's image.
The efforts to advance human cloning confirm the fundamental problem that people generally don't want clones for the clones' own sake. They want clones to replicate the relationship they've had with others or, in the case of the British law, to prolong the relationships they have with those now living.
Now that cloning has arrived, the force of these concerns needs to be addressed. For if there are to be clones among us, we must ensure that we value them because of their essential humanity, not for their utility.
Not long ago, the world marveled--either in admiration or horror, depending on one's perspective--at the news that scientists had cloned monkeys. The story brought to mind Darwin's evolutionary tree: first monkeys, then man. Many observers saw this development as the missing link in the growing chain that would couple man with cloning.
The British vote has removed any question about the ultimate end of this chain. The mere nuisance of a continuing ban on cloning babies themselves is almost certain to be either ignored or overturned by the sheer force of the momentum of science. At some point in the very near future, an embryo will be allowed to live past two weeks, to grow and develop, and will be revealed to the world at some time after birth.
However, not only does the British law open the door to state-sanctioned human cloning, it also endorses an even more pernicious evil: it allows scientists to create life and then destroy it. Frozen embryos have been destroyed for years in fertility clinics when the parents for which they were intended either successfully gave birth or ran out of money. This has been one of the truly great tragedies of our time.
But at least those embryos were created with the intention of being nurtured and brought to term by loving parents. They certainly weren't created with a predetermined two-week life span, their only purpose to provide fodder for a lab technician's experimental fancies.
If anything, this limited purpose supports a principal argument that those who oppose cloning have advanced since Dolly appeared--that cloned humans will be treated as less than human, even as a sort of spare parts factory for their clone "fathers" or "mothers." The first state-sanctioned, cloned human life will do just that--create clones for the sole purpose of contributing to the life enhancement of those already living.
A recent Wired report on human cloning sheds light on the events in Britain in two ways. First, it confirms what the new British law implicitly suggests, namely that human cloning is right around the corner. The magazine found able and willing scientists with clients who are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to create clones of either themselves or other family members.
Secondly, the Wired report reveals that many of the persons most interested in cloning are motivated by the loss of someone close to them, often either a son or daughter who died through accident or disease. In this way, then, cloning is not just another fertility treatment, a unique albeit controversial method for allowing barren couples to bring a child into the world that shares their genetic code. Rather, it is a method for furthering the life of another.
In this way, it mirrors the developments in Britain where they want to further the life of others by contributing to revolutionary stem cell research. In the rest of the world, cloning advocates want to further the life of another by recapturing in some way a life that has been lost -- a life that they believe they can re-ignite in some way through cloning.
This final point is perhaps the most crucial of all because it gets to the heart of the cloning issue. The essence of the problem is that cloning cheapens humanity by removing the individualism that makes each of us unique--the Divine spark, as some would assert, that each of us is created in God's image.
The efforts to advance human cloning confirm the fundamental problem that people generally don't want clones for the clones' own sake. They want clones to replicate the relationship they've had with others or, in the case of the British law, to prolong the relationships they have with those now living.
Now that cloning has arrived, the force of these concerns needs to be addressed. For if there are to be clones among us, we must ensure that we value them because of their essential humanity, not for their utility.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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