There ought to be clones.

(Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004)

South Korean scientists have cloned human embryos. It was bound to happen. The controversy surrounding this achievement was also inevitable. Arguments based on moral issues can be made on either side of the controversy. But one thing that tends to get overlooked is the fact that the arguments against therapeutic cloning are essentially irrational. A cloned embryo is made from an egg cell, from which the nucleus is removed, and a cell from the person being cloned. Even those who take the position that "life begins at conception" (which is a strongly debated matter of opinion) must realize that no conception is involved in the cloning process. The genetic material of the egg is mostly discarded (since most of it is in the nucleus), and the embryos develop from the cells of a person who has presumably consented to the procedure. In the Korean experiment, the egg cells and cumulus cells from the ovaries were obtained from the same woman. Thus, the argument against cloning essentially boils down to the assumption that there is something inherently sacred about the life of a tiny ball of human cells (a blastocyst). For mysterious reasons, this argument is not often applied to the lives of cancerous tumors, which are also human cells. But the difference between a human cell and the cell of any other mammal is a small matter of changes in the DNA. It's only after many further stages of development that the essential differences between humans and other mammals become apparent. In any case, the cells of the cloned embryo belong to the donor. If anyone's essential human rights are affected in any way by the cloning procedure, it would have to be the donor's.

It's difficult to appreciate the point of view that tiny balls of cells are sacred and untouchable. It sounds like primitive superstition. But what about reproductive cloning? Surely that must be wrong; it's like something from a dismal science fiction world, where individuality is banished. Assume for a moment that the process of cloning has been perfected to the point where the health risks to the clone are no different than for any other child. Then the result of a cloning procedure would be essentially a copy: an identical twin, but many years younger than the original. The time difference could be crucial; would anyone turn out identically if they were raised decades later? There's no question that it would be a weird experience to raise your own clone as a child. But many things accepted as normal today were once considered weird, and many things once considered normal are now condemned as immoral. There are certainly concerns about some of the purposes that reproductive cloning might be used for, but these are not inherently problems with the idea of cloning in itself. Of course, the procedure is simply too risky in its current state to use as a method of reproduction, so it makes sense to postpone any attempts at reproductive cloning until the risks are minimized. But if that time does come one day, the arguments against reproductive cloning may sound as ridiculous by then as the arguments against therapeutic cloning sound today.