In Cloning, Will One Person Really Make a Difference?

In just a week, two developments in Washington restored cloning to the very top of the policy agenda in the United States, knocking stem cell research off the perch it had enjoyed--or just endured--for months. On July 31, by a vote of 265 to 162, the House of Representatives passed the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001, a ban on all human cloning, including therapeutic cloning to derive immunologically compatible embryonic stem cells. And on August 7, Severino Antinori, an infertility specialist from Rome, announced he was going to clone a human by November. It seems as if an awful lot of people want to be cloned. Out of the many who applied, two hundred couples were selected. They made their way to a clinic in Rome from all over the world--Japan, Britain, and the United States included. Antinori's patients are infertile men. Because of accident or disease, they cannot produce a genetically related child either naturally or through conventional assisted reproduction techniques. They have rejected artificial insemination using donor sperm and decided, instead, to undergo a procedure that, if successful, will result in their wives giving birth to a clone--a later-born identical twin--of their husbands. So, if these reproductive tourists get their wish, the women will return home married to one twin and the mother of the other. According to reports, eight of the women who have sought out Antinori are from the United Kingdom. In Britain, reproductive cloning will be made illegal when legislation is introduced by the government in the next Parliament. Meanwhile, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which licenses embryo research and storage and infertility treatment involving donated gametes, has announced that it would refuse to license any attempt at reproductive cloning. Hence the necessity for an airplane ticket. Is there anything that can be done about this reproductive tourism? The British Royal Society has called for a worldwide moratorium on reproductive cloning, at least until the risks and possible justifications of the technique are explored fully. But the obstacles in the way of achieving such a moratorium are daunting and most likely insurmountable. There have been rumors that some unnamed Mediterranean country--clearly not his own--has agreed to host Antinori's efforts. And there have been other rumors that he might take to the sea, to become a kind of biomedical Flying Dutchman. It could well be that such a project could be done in the United States. While it is true that the Food and Drug Administration has claimed jurisdiction over cloning, such claims might not withstand legal scrutiny. Four states (California, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Louisiana) have prohibitions of various kinds. But the US Congress has been unable, despite efforts dating back to 1997, to enact legislation to ban reproductive cloning outright--or to pass a law with a sunset clause, the course recommended by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission and endorsed by former President Bill Clinton. So the flurry of legislative activity in the current session of Congress has been significant (See "Cloning Capsized?" Page 1). The bill that passed, which bans and criminalizes both reproductive and therapeutic cloning, enjoys the support of President George W. Bush. In early August, it seemed doubtful that Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle would bring the Senate counterpart to the floor for a quick vote. He has said that he favors going slow on cloning while going much faster with respect to stem cell legislation, which would enjoy large bipartisan support. But no one reckoned on Antinori, who came to town to announce the imminence of his reproductive cloning plans. What kinds of pressures will there be on members of the Senate when they go home for the summer recess to face their constituents? Will they return to Washington determined to stop Antinori, even if it means stopping, and criminalizing, therapeutic cloning in the process? They very well might. And as disappointing as such a development might be for those in favor of therapeutic cloning, it might provide very badly needed political cover for legislators from conservative districts who want to support embryonic stem cell research. In Britain, therapeutic cloning is legal. Indeed, the stem cell policy discussion that ranged over more than two years never attempted to separate the questions, or to allow Parliament to chart a more modest course such as that set out in the National Institutes of Health Guidelines on Stem Cell Research. The British legislation, an amendment to the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, supplemented the permissible uses of embryo research with cell therapies. Creating embryos for research purposes has been legal here since 1990. Thus, in some ways, it was a relatively small step to allow creation of those embryos by cloning. In other respects, however, the step seemed quite large. While stem cell research itself did not inspire much opposition in Parliament, what opposition there was involved cloning. There were fears expressed that acceptance of therapeutic cloning would send them hurtling down the proverbial slippery slope to reproductive cloning. And that is why the government has promised to ban it. How real is the danger of the slippery slope? The idea behind a slippery slope is that if you do x, which is acceptable, you will end up doing y, which is not. Indeed, two types of slippery slopes--logical and sociological--exist. On the logical slippery slope, you slide to the bottom and embrace the morally unacceptable because there is no way to distinguish it from an acceptable practice. You can slide down the sociological slippery slope from one practice to the other--even if the two are conceptually different--just because the existence of one creates a social climate receptive to the other. Therapeutic cloning is conceptually distinct from reproductive cloning. Although the first step is the same, the intent behind the practice is not. The former would be done to save lives by treating diseases now incurable, say, Parkinson's, ALS, and multiple sclerosis. The latter--creating a person by cloning--would be done for reasons extending from egomania, to confusion between replication and resurrection, to the understandable desire to have a biologically related child. Will therapeutic cloning make it more likely that people come to accept reproductive cloning? I don't think so. Therapeutic cloning is intended to heal the sick. The cells created through cloning would be an extension of the patient: a means to treat him with cells generated by his own body. In the United Kingdom a line can be drawn between therapeutic and reproductive cloning--a moral line and also a legal line. In the United States, the situation may be much more complex. It may even be impossible to enact a ban on reproductive cloning that would withstand constitutional challenge. In the United States, reproduction is a fundamental right, and, as such, it can only be restricted if the state has a compelling interest to do so. If the replication that is cloning is construed by a court as a form of reproduction--a likely interpretation--would the courts uphold a restriction on, say, an infertile couple who cannot have a biologically related child in any other way? Allowing therapeutic cloning may subject us to a kind of legal slippery slope. Would a court be able to forbid a couple who had a cloned embryo that was created for therapeutic purposes from implanting that embryo, should they wish to do so? In the unregulated climate that is the United States, how could we ensure that cloned embryos created for therapeutic purposes were not implanted covertly? Such assurance would not be difficult in the United Kingdom. Would it even be possible in the United States? With the Antinori effect, Congress might well surrender to the science fiction fears of cloning and enact a sweeping ban covering both types and having no sunset clause. The public's science-fiction fed unease is very strong. As a sort of busman's holiday the other evening, I watched a movie on television, Mr. Murder, an adaption of a novel by Dean Koontz. As the program was about to start, the announcer summarized the plot, saying that a famous writer was cloned after a mix-up in the lab and the result was a psychopathic mercenary. Then he paused for dramatic effect and said, "It's so annoying when that happens." It's even more annoying when someone like Severino Antinori has a chance to set the public policy agenda of the United States. Arlene Judith Klotzko, a bioethicist and lawyer, is writer in residence at the Science Museum, London, and visiting scholar in bioethics at the Windeyer Institute of Medical Science, University College London. She is editor of The Cloning Sourcebook, published recently by Oxford University Press.

In Cloning, Will One Person Really Make a Difference?

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