A Cloning Emergency in Britain?

Since the beginning of 2001--Jan. 22 to be exact--it seemed that one country, the United Kingdom, had unambiguously--and literally--gotten its act together on cloning. On that day the House of Lords passed regulations, adopted by the House of Commons one month before, that not only allowed embryonic stem cell research to develop therapies for devastating and intractable diseases, but also situated cloning squarely within the framework of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990. Or so it seemed until a High Court decision of Nov. 15 threw the scheme into confusion and the government into a panic. In a challenge to the regulations brought by the Pro-Life Alliance, a High Court judge had to decide whether the definition of an embryo, written into the 1990 act, could embrace an embryo produced by nuclear transfer. He said no. Thus, none of the provisions in the act could be applied to cloned embryos. In one judicial stroke, the basis for allowing therapeutic cloning and the mechanism for prohibiting reproductive cloning simply vanished. Stem cell research remained unaffected, as long as the embryos used are products of fertilization. The government responded immediately, announcing its appeal and also whipping up, in record time, "emergency legislation" that would ban reproductive cloning and make it a criminal offense. Indeed, four days after the court decision--almost 10 months to the day after the House of Lords debate and vote--I found myself back in the chamber listening to many of the same arguments made by many of the same people. The pro-life forces were trying to ban therapeutic as well as reproductive cloning. But they failed again. By the end of the week, in what must be record time, the new law took effect and reproductive cloning became a crime in Britain. Therapeutic cloning remains in limbo--not illegal but with no regulations. Aside from the High Court judgment, there were two additional reasons for the cloning state of emergency: the claim by Advanced Cell Technology that it had produced the first human embryo clone (See "Cloning Controversy Re-emerges in US") and an announcement by Severino Antinori that he intended to travel to the United Kingdom the following week to clone some British people before the window of opportunity could be shut in his face. One of the lighter moments in the House of Lords debate came when a rather stuffy Tory peer sniffed that all of this rush and fuss was caused by one "Italian doctor." Her suggestion: Couldn't we just not let him into the country? Now the loophole is closed, reproductive cloning is a crime, and we await the results of the appeal. We also await a report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Stem Cells, which has been hearing evidence since last spring. Very much at stake is the future of therapeutic cloning. In Britain--where regulation is viewed as a benign enabler and not an annoying meddler--it seems unlikely that any reputable scientist will rush in and try to do therapeutic cloning in the meantime. If the government prevails in its appeal, it will be as if the High Court decision never happened. Licenses for research can be granted or refused under the authority of the 1990 act. Britain will maintain its status as the most advantageous environment for stem cell research. If the appeal is lost, however, the government will have to go back to Parliament with primary legislation to specifically legalize and regulate therapeutic cloning. And this is just what the pro-life forces have had in mind all along. They want to get another crack at the 1990 act, which not only regulates assisted conception with donor gametes and embryo research, but also has one of the most liberal abortion provisions in the world. Winston Churchill described the British and Americans as two peoples separated by a common language. But we are also separated by very distinct political and social contexts, by varying moral thresholds about contentious issues and by very different attitudes about regulation. We can, of course, learn from each other, but the nature of our social and moral debates will always be different, even though they proceed from the same questions. In the United Kingdom, scientists have been allowed to create embryos specifically for research purposes since the passage of the 1990 act. In the United States, the moral lines have been drawn in a different place. Several prominent US politicians who fiercely oppose abortion nonetheless support embryonic stem cell research using embryos left over after in vitro fertilization. However, even some American advocates of embryonic stem cell research think that the additional steps involved in therapeutic cloning go beyond acceptable moral and political limits. And here is where the US moral debate should take place. One can only hope that the Senate will not do what it has done in the past on any issue linked to abortion: simply duck and leave it to the private sector to sort out. This is the course followed regarding assisted reproduction and, as a result, the United States is a virtual wild west where just about anything goes, as long as there is a willing consumer. Therapeutic cloning research is important as a learning tool for research. It is a way for scientists to learn the lessons of Dolly--how a somatic cell (one that knows how to be only one thing) can be reprogrammed to forget its narrow destiny and to be capable of much more. It could even, in a sense, put itself out of business as it unlocks the secrets of cell reprogramming and allows us to use one type of body cell that is healthy to replace another type that is sick. UK politicians have had a huge advantage over their US counterparts--an ongoing discussion since early 1998 about therapeutic cloning. These sorts of questions are rightly matters of public concern. Despite our cultural differences, the United States can learn two very important lessons from the British: Matters of public concern and moral difficulty should be faced and fully discussed. Regulation in morally contentious areas can allow science to flourish by reassuring the public that mischief is not being done. In the area of cloning--probably more than any other--the public on both sides of the Atlantic wants this reassurance. Arlene Judith Klotzko, a lawyer and bioethicist, is writer in residence at the Science Museum, London, and a contributing editor for The Scientist. Her next book, A Clone of Your Own?, will be published this spring by Oxford University Press.

A Cloning Emergency in Britain?

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