This staff working paper
was discussed at the Council's January
2002 meeting. It was prepared by staff solely to aid discussion,
and does not represent the official views of the Council or of the
United States Government.
See also Staff
Working Paper: Arguments Against "Reproductive" Cloning
Staff Working Paper
Arguments for
"Reproductive Cloning"
This working paper, prepared for the second of our three sessions
on human cloning, addresses the following matters: What are the
ethical arguments for and against human "reproductive" cloning?
Should society ban it? How do advocates of
each position respond to the arguments of the other side? How should
concern about fundamental human goods (such as human nature,
culture, family, individuality, rights, and dignity) shape our
judgment about the ethics of human cloning? The paper is divided
into two distinct sections, 3a and 3b, which present the case in
favor of and against "reproductive" cloning, respectively.
3a. Arguments for "Reproductive"
Cloning The widespread unease, fear, and
revulsion that most Americans feel at the idea of cloning human
beings is undeniable. Human cloning challenges long-standing
assumptions about human life and human nature. It elicits in many
people the image of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or Aldous
Huxley's Brave New World, where biology and science reduce
men and women to monsters or machines.
But the stability and
wisdom of these prejudices, when viewed in the larger course of
human and technological progress, remains an open question. How
often in history has the unknown and undone been called "evil" or
"hubristic" or "impossible," only to become normal, desirable, and
celebrated? How often have new discoveries and new powers over
nature been described as fundamental "leaps," when in fact they are
a continuation of previous (and accepted) innovations? Of course,
there are certainly technologies that many of us probably wish could
be undiscovered. And the historical fact that individuals and
societies have embraced, over time, technologies that they once
feared and rejected does not prove that the technologies are good,
only that people became convinced that they are good. In other
words, just because something is possible does not mean it is
desirable. But equally true is the fact that just because something
is new -- even "revolutionary" -- does not mean it ought to be
feared and rejected.
A sober judgment about human cloning,
therefore, requires a full consideration of our prejudices, and
perhaps the discovery that our prejudices are not the only or even
the best ones. Among those who desire to clone human beings -- both
for experimental and for reproductive purposes -- three human goods
(or ideas of human good) are central: The first is the good of
human freedom: to inquire, to invent, to reproduce, to seek
human progress, to live out one's chosen course of life, to dare to
know the unknown and to do the undone. The second is the desire
to relieve man's estate: to prevent and treat diseases; to
improve the life chances and opportunities of ever more people; and
to expand what is humanly possible by improving man's genetic
potentialities and capacities. The third is the good of human
love: love of oneself and one's existence; love of one's spouse
or partner, with whom one desires to share the rearing of a
"biologically related" child; and love of the potential child
himself or herself.
This working paper will begin by listing
the justifiable -- or potentially justifiable -- reasons for human
reproductive cloning, as well as the reasons why human cloning ought
not to be banned. It will then direct most of its attention to
reexamining our moral prejudices relevant to human cloning. It will
suggest that the public's repugnance against cloning may be extreme
or misguided, and not likely to last once (or if) the technology
becomes safe and its good (or justifiable) uses become apparent.
A. Reasons for Reproductive
Cloning The reasons for human reproductive
cloning can perhaps be broken down into two basic groups:
liberal (a through f) and eugenic (g through i). The
first are recognizable and defensible within the core values of
modern liberal democracy; the second run against the grain of our
prejudices -- for now, if not forever.
Reproductive cloning,
it is argued:
a. Allows infertile couples to have children
who are biologically related to one of the parents.1
b. Allows nontraditional couples and individuals (same-sex
couples, single mothers, single fathers) to have children who are
biologically related to themselves.
c. Allows people to have
children without the risk of known genetic diseases.
d.
Allows people to attempt to "replace" children who have died
prematurely.
e. Allows parents to produce children who would
be ideal transplant donors for a desperately ill existing child.
f. Expands reproductive freedom and reproductive choice.
g. Allows families or society to reproduce individuals of
great genius, talent, or beauty, presumed to be based on their
desirable or superior genetic make-ups.
h. Allows society to
prepare for the unpredictable nature of the future: for example,
extreme circumstances may require the re-creation of certain
desirable genomes.
i. Human cloning is the next step in
human evolution; the gateway to the genetic self-improvement of
mankind; and the desirable continuation of modern civilization's
mastery of nature for the relief of man's estate.
B. The Case Against Banning Reproductive
Cloning Beyond the deep disagreements about the
ethics of human cloning, there are prudential, social, and political
questions regarding whether banning human cloning is desirable or
feasible, and whether its unintended consequences are more or less
significant than its intended purpose.
The arguments against
such a ban include the following:
a. Government should not
or cannot interfere with reproductive rights, even if a majority of
society believes certain forms of reproduction are undesirable or
immoral.
b. Human cloning is so strange that only a small
number of people will try to reproduce in this way, and even if they
are successful the effect on society would be limited or
insignificant, and does not justify state intervention.
c.
Banning human cloning at the federal level is unconstitutional, and
would be an undesirable increase of federal power.
d.
Banning human cloning will not succeed. People will violate the ban
or move their cloning activities "offshore" to more permissive
settings. Better therefore to allow it and to regulate its use.
e. Banning human cloning threatens other legitimate avenues
of scientific research, and sets a dangerous precedent against the
freedom of scientific inquiry.
f. Banning human cloning
would threaten widely accepted forms of assisted reproduction (such
as artificial insemination and IVF).
g. Even if human
cloning is not desirable in light of society's present-day values,
it is likely that cloned children will one day exist, and banning
cloning today will set a dangerous precedent that future cloned
people are unequal, undesirable, and lack equal civil rights. It
will establish an unnecessary legacy of discrimination.
C. The Safety of Human
Cloning 2
a. The ends justify the means: Beneficial research and
technological breakthroughs often come with costs, including
research on human embryos and fetuses.
b. Safety is possible
without requiring overly reckless experimentation: Parallel with
IVF.
D. Moral and Philosophical
Considerations -- Reexamining Our Prejudices 1.
Existence versus Non-Existence: Those who oppose human cloning
believe a class of potential human beings (human clones) should
never be created, and hence should never exist. This raises a series
of questions and problems: If a child were in fact created through
human cloning, would that child possess "human dignity"? Would the
cloned child be "sacred" in the eyes of those who affirm the
sacredness of human life? If yes, do opponents of cloning believe
that potentially dignified and sacred human beings (cloned children)
should be denied existence, even if they could be created safely?
Opponents of human cloning offer three answers to this
challenge: First, they say that it is not potential clones that are
the object of their repugnance, but rather those who would create
the cloned children, the desire to create them, and the act of
creating them. Second, they say that seeking to stop something from
coming to be is not necessarily a denial of the dignity of the thing
(or the class of persons) that is stopped. Third, they say that
arguing against the possible maiming of unborn children (like
arguing against the siring of children through rape or incest) is
not the same as saying those children should be mistreated once or
if they were to exist or that their existence would lack human
dignity.
These are indeed serious, perhaps impregnable
objections. Nevertheless, on these questions, it may be worth
considering a comparison of the ethics of human cloning and the
ethics of the selective abortion of embryos with genetic defects.
For on the one hand, many opponents of human cloning at the same
time affirm being over non-being on the question of whether to abort
"imperfects," arguing that it is a false mercy to kill unborn
children even if they have been diagnosed with certain biological or
genetic defects. They affirm the sacredness of all human life,
including the sacredness of the sick, disabled, and "non-normal." On
the other hand, they argue against the creation of human clones, and
therefore seem to prefer the non-existence of a class of human
beings over existence.
Of course, the difference here is
that many of those who seek to stop human cloning would do so before
any individual clones have been created. Selective abortion, by
contrast, is a "remedy" after the fact -- after unborn individuals
have already been created, who are imperfect in some way because of
the "misfortunes" of natural fertilization rather than the mistakes
of the laboratory. But this difference, in the end, seems less
significant than whether existence is affirmed -- however
"imperfect" or "non-normal" those who would exist might be -- or
whether existence is denied. And if the concern is specifically
about the potential "maiming" of children, do objections to human
cloning lose their force if the technique were to become as safe in
the future as IVF is in the present?
Moreover, when or if it
becomes likely that human cloning will happen, doesn't prudence
require that arguments against it be moderated or even muted for the
sake of the dignity, well-being, and self-esteem of the clones that
exist? What would it feel like to be a child that a significant
portion of society wants to "ban"? The answer to this question, of
course, can cut both ways: as a reason never to clone in the first
place, or as a reason to tolerate human clones and human cloning,
because society will not likely stop it. One's answer to this
question depends not just on whether one believes a ban on human
cloning is morally desirable but also on whether one believes it is
possible or likely to be effective.
There may be both
philosophical and practical difficulties connected with holding that
clones should never exist, but that if they do in fact come into
being they will posses human dignity. (Just as it seems problematic
to say that whole classes of unborn children with certain diseases
should be preemptively aborted, while those who live with such
diseases are still human beings in the full sense.) 3 It also seems plausible to argue that a
cloned individual, once born, would prefer existence as a clone to
no existence at all, which would leave opponents of cloning in the
intolerant position of saying: "We don't want you; better for us and
for you that you never existed."
2.
The Many Faces of Human Dignity: What gives human
beings dignity? What defines human nature? What responsibilities and
duties define the good life, the good society, or the good
civilization? On these questions, there are deep disagreements --
perhaps irreconcilable conflicts -- between competing ideals,
competing moralities, and therefore a competing sense of what is
justified and what is not, what is good and what is evil. It is
therefore not so easy to say that cloning is an assault on human
dignity.
Example 1:
Person A may believe human life is defined by the achievements of
the strong and those endowed with superior intelligence (or by the
rights of all citizens to become these things); and that any eugenic
or reproductive program that increases the number and capacity of
such human beings (say, by cloning individuals with the best
genotypes) is morally good. Person B may believe that human life is
defined by the equal dignity of all human beings as they are
or as God has made them, and that the good society is defined
by its capacity to protect the powerless and needy against the
powerful and uncaring, and by its capacity to secure the equal
rights of all.
Example
2: Person A may believe that the human quest for
immortality through science, even if destined to be unsuccessful for
the foreseeable future, is what defines the good life, and that the
spirited scientists who seek this goal with their research, even at
the expense of human embryos, are heroic. Person B may believe that
realism about human mortality is the key to wisdom and virtue, and
that far more important than how long human beings live is the way
they live: the depth of their loves and commitments, their calm
acceptance of life's hardships and duties, their willingness to
respect life and to honor moral limits, their courage in the face of
danger, and so forth.
Example
3: Person A may believe that prenatal screening and
abortion of embryos that will grow up sick and suffering is a form
of mercy. Person B may believe that selective abortion of the
"imperfect" is a form of murder or unjustifiable discrimination or
both.
Example 4:
Person A may believe that giving children the best genetic equipment
expands individual rights -- both the rights of those who clone (by
increasing their reproductive choices) and the rights of the cloned
(whose future opportunities and capabilities may be expanded by
guaranteeing them a superior genome). Person B may believe that
choosing the genetic characteristics of children through human
cloning destroys individual rights, because it reduces children to
objects or artifacts and denies individuals the right to a
genetically open future. Both moral outlooks are rationally
defensible. Both are rooted in ideals about human nature and human
dignity.
3. Nature versus Culture
(or History): Any normative idea linked to "human
nature" inevitably runs into the problem of what is natural versus
what is historical or cultural. Especially when it comes to
technological innovation, things that at first seem dangerous,
hubristic, and unnatural often quickly or eventually come to be
accepted as tolerable, normal, and beneficial. This does not
necessarily mean that our accommodation of technology means that the
technologies to which we accommodate ourselves are good. But the
recent history of other reproductive technologies (artificial
insemination, IVF) is instructive: Both were questioned and even
denounced at first, but are now accepted and even celebrated by most
citizens, including those committed to an "essentialist" idea of
human nature and traditional ideas of the family.
This
dilemma of nature versus culture is also apparent when it comes to
matters of sexuality, reproduction, and the family. Homosexuality,
for example, was once illegal and taboo on the grounds of being
"unnatural," but is now widely if not universally tolerated. Given
this dilemma, it seems defensible to argue that our fears about
human cloning may be understandable, in light of our past, but must
be reexamined in the light of the present and future: in the light
of evolving culture, science, and technology. And while one may call
into question whether the forward movement of history and technology
is desirable, doing so may require a larger critique of progress
than most critics of cloning are prepared to make. Indeed, by
conceding the goodness of (or being willing to tolerate)
technologies like IVF, and by accepting "non-traditional" forms of
family life and novel contexts for rearing the young, cloning
critics may have already conceded the most serious grounds for
objecting to reproductive cloning.
4. Human versus Post-Human: Those
who appeal to human nature and traditional virtue in opposition to
cloning must acknowledge that much of human history is a story of
cruelty, failure, and suffering. It may be that human nature -- or
the human condition -- can be improved, which is to some the very
definition of progress. The nature of that improvement may be
unpredictable, and one can certainly imagine a scenario in which
human cloning might contribute to human self-improvement rather than
undermining what is believed to be human nature. Perhaps, in the
long run, it will prove no more natural for human beings to suffer,
or to marry, or to reproduce sexually, than it is natural for them
not to fly in airplanes, explore beyond the earth, or discover the
true movements of the planets. The matter of evolution presents
additional questions, since it shows humankind, with all other
species, to be apparently in continuous transition. Viewed in the
light of our long evolutionary history, post-humanity would seem to
be less a choice than a destiny, and perhaps ultimately a desirable
destiny.4
5.
Environment versus Genetics: Which scenario would be
more fundamentally different from what we accept as the normal human
experience in America in 2002: To grow up as a healthy clone in
Scarsdale, New York, or to grow up as a non-clone in ancient Egypt?
To grow up as a healthy clone in Chevy Chase, Maryland, or a
non-clone in the most underdeveloped part of the world? Which is
more normal or desirable: A naturally conceived child with a genetic
disease who dies at age three or a child conceived through cloning
who lives a full and healthy life? And what if the clone grew up
separate from his "genetic parent" -- say, in an adopted household
where the rearing parents did not even know the source of their
child's DNA?
Granted, our judgments about human cloning
ought not to be made in such stark and artificial "either-or" terms.
But the point of these examples is that having a genome already
lived may be insignificant when compared with the circumstances in
which one lives. Moreover, it seems especially problematic to say
that human dignity depends in a fundamental way on family lineage,
when it is clear that people born to single parents, people who are
adopted, and people reared in "non-traditional" families all acquire
an intelligible and meaningful place in the world. (Of course, one
must acknowledge that there is no existing analogue to being a child
whose complete genetic make-up is both selected in advance and
"already lived" by another.)
Both genetics and environment
matter, but the essential point is not clone versus non-clone, but a
healthy genome and healthy environment versus an unhealthy genome
and an unhealthy environment. Certainly, one could argue that to be
the "genetic twin" of one's "father" or "mother" is an unhealthy
psychological environment for a child. But it is certainly not the
worst environment imaginable -- far from it -- and it may be that
the psychological harm of being a clone is rooted in socially
constructed (historical) ideas of human individuality and human
dignity rather than anything essential about human nature.
6. Two Ideas of
Humility: Those who advocate human cloning and those
who oppose human cloning typically have very different conceptions
of the meaning of humility: Those who oppose cloning believe human
beings must be humble before nature (that is, humble about
our wisdom and capacity to improve or modify the human condition for
the better). They believe human beings should not act in ways that
undermine, transform, or rebel against the lasting truths of human
existence -- defined in part by the differences between men and
women; by the central role of family, lineage, and sexual
reproduction; and by the givenness of human mortality. Humility
means living well in light of our true condition -- including the
unchosen burdens and responsibilities of human life -- and
maintaining laws that prevent those who would use technology to
undermine human nature
By contrast, those who advocate for
human cloning believe human beings must be humble about
nature -- or at least humble about imposing one idea of human nature
on everyone. They believe that what defines human life is its
openness to fundamental change and the history of those fundamental
changes; and that those who unreasonably seek to halt human
experimentation and human progress act with a reactionary hubris
that is morally unjustified. (This raises the question, of course,
of whether any restraints on technology -- or, for that matter, on
all human behavior -- are reasonable to those who believe human
nature is "open-ended"?)
In reality, the argument over the
meaning of humility is an argument about conflicting ideals and the
conflicting social policies that follow from those ideals. These
conflicts include: the ideal of preserving the traditional family
versus the ideal of overcoming or transforming it; the ideal
of protecting the weak (including human embryos) versus the
ideal of using the weak to help the strong or using the unborn to
help the living; the ideal that the human condition is fundamentally
fixed, and that what is true about our nature is more significant
than what is altered by history versus the ideal that human nature
is fluid, that the transformations of history are fundamental, and
that the role of those in the present is to imagine the next
transformations and make them happen; the ideal that man is properly
measured by being or nature or God versus the ideal that man should
be the measure of all things (even as this measure is itself
ever-changeable). Of course, prudence demands judging the best
balance among these competing ideals. But this "best balance"
inevitably depends on how much significance one gives each of the
different ideals, and whether one believes the ideals themselves
have inherent or only subjectively determined value.
In the
end, it may be that neither side can "prove" its case beyond a
reasonable doubt. For example: It is perfectly plausible for Person
A to say that his goal is to "end suffering and disease," and that
this goal (the improved genetic endowment of future generations)
justifies overturning society's current taboos regarding cloning and
eugenics. Person B can counter that the goal of making men "perfect"
or "better" is unrealistic, and that seeking it through
baby-manufacture is unethical. But again, neither side can "prove"
its case. How many things have been declared unrealistic but shown
otherwise? And how can one prove that embryos, or the sick, or the
weak, have equal value to the living, or the healthy, or the strong?
Is it more hubristic to seek to end suffering and disease or to stop
those who believe they can? Is it more humble to accept the limits
of the human condition or to deny any fixed ideas about man as man
and therefore to deny the legitimacy of state regulation of
scientific research? Perhaps humility and hubris -- and the ideas of
human dignity and human purpose that ground them, as well as the
proper application of prudence -- are ultimately in the eye of the
beholder.
7.
Conclusion: Taken together, some reasons for
pursuing human cloning are recognizable; others are shocking. Those
that are recognizable -- most notably, cloning as another possible
option for the remedy of infertility -- parallel earlier
technologies that once shocked or disturbed us, like artificial
insemination and IVF. These recognizable reasons to clone can thus
be defended within the core values of modern liberal democracy:
expanding individual rights and reproductive choices; expanding
tolerance for all classes of people; support for technology;
protection of the rights of scientists to do unrestricted research;
caution about using the power of the state to regulate private
decisions; and so on.
The shocking reasons for cloning (for
example, the eugenic improvement of human beings and the quest for
post-humanity) are not illegitimate just because they run against
the grain of our prejudices. For it may be that our present-day
moral presumptions are misguided, and that a rational case for
humanitarian or evolutionary eugenics deserves a fair hearing; and
that its various advocates deserve at least some room to prove their
case or pursue their ideals. And while such ideals offer a direct
challenge to our idea of civilization, the truth is that our values
and purposes are not the only morally justifiable ones, and our
civilization is not likely to be the last form of human (or
post-human) civilization in history.
1. In most of the
world, there is generally a strong desire for human couples to have
biologically related children. In the United States in particular,
there is a bias in law, custom, and medicine to foster and permit
this. Treatment of infertility has become a medical sub-specialty.
Procedures such as IVF have enabled many infertile couples, single
parents, and individuals with genetic diseases to have children who
are biologically related to one or both of the parents. In the
United States, with minor exceptions, the state does not regulate
who can produce children or the number of children permitted per
family. These decisions are left to individuals and are part of what
we mean by reproductive freedom. Part of the current debate about
reproductive cloning thus involves whether it is necessarily or
desirably a component of reproductive freedom, and whether there are
unique or justifiable reasons to reproduce with human cloning.
2. For a larger discussion of the state of
human cloning technology, see Working Paper:
Scientific Aspects of Human and Animal Cloning.
3. Nevertheless, one must concede that such an
argument could be used also for the following reasons: 1) to justify
any kind of mistreatment of the unborn, on the grounds that
criticizing such mistreatment is also a criticism of the mistreated;
and 2) to indict even such things as preventative medicine or good
nutrition as a form of not embracing unborn children "as they are"
or "as God has given them." Is there anything problematic in saying
that pregnant mothers must not take thalidomide or heroin, but the
maimed children of those who are reckless must still be treated with
lovingkindness and respect? Is not this "paradox" built into all
efforts to prevent injury and defect in the unborn?
4. Of course, it must be acknowledged that to claim
that something is desirable for human beings implies a prior idea of
what is good for human beings (which suggests an idea of "human
nature" and of what is normatively human).
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See also Staff
Working Paper: Arguments Against "Reproductive" Cloning
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