Human Cloning - Saskatchewan Elocution and Debate Association

SASKATCHEWAN ELOCUTION AND DEBATE ASSOCIATION 

ASSOCIATION D'ÉLOCUTION ET DES DÉBATS DE LA SASKATCHEWAN 

Human Cloning 

“Be it resolved that the Canadian government support human cloning.” 

Research prepared by Deron Staffen, Fall 2003 

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Brave New World Page 1 of 5 

Smithsonian, December 2001 

Title: Brave New World: Everything You Wanted to Know About Stem Cells, Cloning and Genetic 

Engineering but Were Afraid to Ask. 

Author: James Trefil 

Source: Smithsonian, p38 

Date: Dec. 2001 

It was not by chance that 

President Bush's first televised 

address, last August, was about 

stem cell research, coming as it 

did at the height of a summer 

swirling with heated debate over 

the issue ("one of the most 

profound of our time," 

according to the President). That 

and other recent debates have 

raised questions not only about 

changes in science and medicine 

but about such profound issues 

as the nature and value of 

human life, and whether humans 

have the moral right to tamper 

with genetic material, on the 

one hand, or the obligation to 

develop technologies that would 

alleviate the suffering of 

millions, on the other. Such 

questions are important, but 

only by understanding the 

science involved can we begin 

to address the ethical 

conundrums coming our way. 

With nearly every advance in 

medicine, from the smallpox 

vaccine to organ transplants, 

there has been controversy over 

how much we should be altering 

nature. When Louise Brown, the 

world's first test-tube baby (now 

a healthy 23-year-old), was born 

in England in 1978, some 

people called conception outside 

the body immoral and tried to 

have the technique banned. 

Back in the 1970s, science made 

advances in two areas that 

seemed, on the surface, 

unrelated — but which have 

veered ever closer to each other. 

One was a growing 

understanding of, and ability to 

manipulate, deoxyribonucleic 

acid (DNA), the molecule that 

provides our genetic code. The 

other involved the advent of in 

vitro fertilization (IVF), the 

technology responsible for 

Louise Brown and nearly a 

million babies since. 

IVF is a process by which eggs 

are removed surgically from a 

woman's ovaries and fertilized 

with sperm in a laboratory. 

After undergoing a few cell 

divisions, several of the 

resulting embryos are inserted 

into a woman's uterus where, 

with luck, at least one will 

develop into a full-term fetus. In 

any one trial of IVF, as many as 

10 to 20 eggs may be extracted 

and fertilized, and the majority 

of the resulting embryos are 

often frozen at an early stage of 

development, in case they will 

be needed for later attempts at 

implantation in the uterus. 

Though IVF offered new hope 

to many who could not 

otherwise conceive, it also 

opened up a slew of ethical 

questions, beginning with the 

status of those embryos that 

remain unused in the lab. Then 

there is the fact that the woman 

who donates the egg need not be 

the one who carries the embryo 

or who raises the child. It is, in 

fact, possible to have as many as 

five adults who could claim 

parenthood in an IVF scenario: 

the sperm donor, the egg donor, 

the woman who carries the fetus 

and a couple responsible for its 

upbringing. 

Still, for all the potential issues 

it raises, IVF was in many ways 

just the beginning, a relatively 

simple manipulation of the 

natural order. The closer science 

has gotten to deciphering our 

genetic makeup, the more 

complicated the landscape has 

grown. 

GENES AND DNA 

By the middle of the 20th 

century, scientists had begun to 

realize that "genes" — the name 

given to whatever it was that 

passed down inherited traits — 

were made of DNA and that 

they were located on 

chromosomes, threadlike 

structures found in cell nuclei of 

almost all living things. 

For molecular biologists, the 

second half of the 20th century 

was devoted to divining the 

structure of the DNA molecule 

(the double helix, discovered in 

1953) and then figuring out how 

the molecule's fundamental 

components — called 

nucleotides — combined to 

form genes, how genes provided 

the instructions for making the 

molecules that allow living 

things to function, which genes 

did what, and where they were 

located. Just last year, scientists 

announced that they'd 

sequenced the human genome. 

Though they are far from 

figuring out what all of our 

genes do, they now know the 

order and location on our 

chromosomes of all of the 

nucleotides and have identified 

about half of our genes. 

Much of the research on human 

DNA has focused on diseases



that are prevalent in families or 

in certain ethnic groups — 

starting with such single-gene 

disorders as cystic fibrosis, Tay- 

Sachs disease and sickle-cell 

anemia — because medical 

histories of affected families 

were available and the fruits of 

such research might save, or at 

least improve, countless lives. 

As our understanding of our 

genes has increased, so have our 

choices dealing with birth and 

conception. For several decades, 

couples with family histories of 

particular diseases have sought 

the advice of genetic counselors 

about whether to have children. 

With amniocentesis — a 

procedure in which amniotic 

fluid is extracted from the 

womb and examined — 

expectant mothers have long 

been able to determine if a 

developing fetus has certain 

chromosomal disorders. But 

more recent advances have 

brought the potential for couples 

to be advised not only on the 

basis of family history but on 

the presence of genetic markers 

of hereditary disease in their 

DNA. And with IVF technology 

came the ability to screen 

embryos for chromosomal 

anomalies — and for specific 

genetic traits, including genetic 

diseases. 

Along with advances in 

screening in recent decades, 

there has been a surge of 

research on ways to treat 

existing genetic disorders. That 

research was based largely on 

two great truths that had been 

revealed about DNA. The first 

is that the sole function of most 

genes is to give cells encoded 

instructions for churning out 

particular proteins, the building 

blocks of life. There are tens of 

thousands of different proteins 

in the human body — from 

collagen and hemoglobin to 

various hormones and enzymes 

— and each is encoded by a 

particular order of nucleotides 

in a gene. (Many diseases are 

caused by defective genes that 

don't produce their protein 

correctly — and treatments that 

introduce missing proteins have 

long been used for such 

disorders as diabetes and 

hemophilia.) 

The second insight is that all 

living things use the same basic 

genetic code. Just as all the 

books in a great library can be 

written in a single language, so, 

too, are all living things the 

result of different messages 

"written" in the same exact 

DNA language — and "read" by 

our cells. This means that if a 

stretch of DNA is taken from a 

donor and inserted into the 

DNA of a host's cells, those 

cells will read the new message, 

regardless of its source. 

Though there are endless 

possible applications for this 

phenomenon (and at least as 

many complicating factors), 

doctors found particularly 

promising the idea of fixing 

broken genes by manipulating 

DNA through a process known 

as gene therapy, a form of 

genetic engineering. 

GENE THERAPY 

In some ways, manipulating dna 

is a completely natural 

phenomenon. Certain kinds of 

viruses — including HIV and 

others — infect us by inserting 

their genetic information into 

our cells, which then haplessly 

reproduce the invading virus. In 

some forms of gene therapy, 

this kind of virus itself is 

engineered so that the viral gene 

that causes the disease and 

allows the virus to reproduce is 

removed and replaced with a 

healthy version of the human 

gene that needs "fixing." Then 

this therapeutic, engineered 

virus is sent off to do its work 

on the patient's cells. There are 

hundreds of procedures using 

such "viral vectors" in clinical 

trials today, targeting diseases 

that range from rheumatoid 

arthritis to cancer. So far there 

have been few, if any, real 

successes — and the field 

received a serious setback in 

1999 when a patient died while 

undergoing gene therapy trials 

for liver disease. 

But even if this form of gene 

therapy, or one like it, can be 

made to be safe and effective, it 

still represents a relatively 

short-term approach to genetic 

disease — compared with what 

is theoretically possible. After 

all, even if individuals can be 

successfully treated, their 

descendants would likely still 

inherit the gene or genes that 

caused their ailments. The form 

of gene therapy we've been 

discussing affects so-called 

somatic cells, which make up 

the vast majority of cells in our 

body. But it is not somatic cells 

but germ cells — our eggs and 

sperm — that pass our genes to 

our offspring. 

GENETIC ENGINEERING 

When talking about changing 

the DNA in human germ cells, 

scientists use the term "germ 

line therapy." But in plants or 

animals, it's what we commonly 

think of as "genetic 

engineering." Either way, it 

means altering the DNA of an 

organism in a way that increases 

the likelihood (or, in some 

cases, ensures) that all of its



offspring will have the same, 

engineered, characteristics. 

So far, this form of genetic 

engineering has not been 

attempted on humans (as far as 

we know), but it is used on 

nearly every other life-form — 

from bacteria to plants to 

livestock. Virtually all insulin 

used to treat diabetes comes 

from bacteria whose DNA has 

been modified by the addition of 

the human gene for insulin, 

which the bacteria then produce. 

Plants are routinely engineered 

so that they will be resistant to 

certain pests or diseases, 

withstand particular herbicides 

or grow in previously unusable 

soils. One area of intense debate 

concerns the extent to which 

such genetically modified 

organisms should be used in 

agriculture. In the United States, 

about half of the soybeans and a 

quarter of the corn grown on 

farms have been genetically 

modified. While the industry 

and many experts argue that 

products that are easier to grow 

or contain more nutrients (or 

even produce pharmaceuticals) 

could help prevent worldwide 

hunger and disease, critics 

question the possible side 

effects — particularly to the 

environment — of introducing 

new genes into agricultural 

products. 

The truth is, there is still an 

inestimable amount that we 

don't know about the functions 

of particular genes or how they 

work in tandem. Much of the 

concern about genetic 

engineering — in plants or in 

people — rests on this fact. Yet 

with the promise of tomatoes 

that prevent cancer, salmon 

many times the size of those 

produced in nature, even pets 

engineered to be nonallergenic, 

many people hope that similar 

enhancements can be made to 

human genes as well. After all, 

such techniques as genetic 

screening of embryos, gene 

therapy and genetic engineering 

have the potential not only to 

prevent disease but to increase 

the likelihood of desired traits 

— from eye color to intelligence 

and other attributes. (Though 

we're very far from customdesigning 

our offspring, there 

are already cases of genetic 

screening of embryos for 

desired traits — including 

parents seeking bone-marrow 

matches for older, ill children.) 

CLONING 

There are also those who see 

great promise in another form of 

custom-designed offspring: 

cloning. Though most scientists 

oppose human cloning, three 

researchers caused quite a stir 

earlier this year when they each, 

independently, announced that 

they were working to create 

human clones. 

The modern age of cloning can 

be said to have begun in 1996, 

when Ian Wilmut of Roslin 

Institute in Scotland oversaw 

the birth of Dolly, the first 

mammal known to have been 

produced by cloning from an 

adult cell. Worldwide "Hello, 

Dolly" headlines announced the 

breakthrough, and subsequently, 

scientists working with goats, 

pigs, mice and cows followed in 

Wilmut's path. 

To "create" Dolly, Wilmut and 

his colleagues took an 

unfertilized egg from a ewe and 

removed its chromosomal 

material, replacing it with a 

somatic cell (replete with DNA) 

from another ewe. In normal 

fertilization, when sperm and 

egg merge, the resulting cell — 

containing all the genetic 

information necessary — 

immediately starts dividing. In 

cloning Dolly, the somatic cell 

and the egg were fused with an 

electric current, which somehow 

prompted the package to act as 

though it were a newly fertilized 

egg. The resulting embryo was 

inserted into the uterus of a third 

ewe, using the techniques that 

had seen such success in in vitro 

fertilization. 

In some respects, cloning can be 

likened to a construction 

project. The egg is like a crew 

of workers ready to build 

according to the specifications 

on a blueprint (DNA) once the 

plan is finalized and the whistle 

blows (fertilization). Whatever 

the crew sees on the blueprint, it 

will build. In the cloning 

process, scientists insert an 

already-completed blueprint and 

— in the form of an electric 

current or some other prompt — 

blow the whistle. 

But just as independent builders 

using the same blueprint can 

build slightly different 

structures, so cloning does not 

create absolute replicas. Though 

a newborn clone will have 

chromosomal DNA identical to 

that of the adult donor and in 

that way would be the adult's 

genetic twin, it would also be a 

twin developed as a fetus in a 

different womb, flooded with a 

different bath of chemicals at 

different points in its 

development, born decades later 

and raised in a different 

environment. The clone could 

also differ from the donor due to 

trace DNA in the donor's egg — 

in structures called 

mitochondria, for instance — 

that could affect the clone's 

development. (In fact, there



have been recent reports of 

human babies who have genetic 

material from three adults, due 

to a technique that uses healthy 

mitochondria from a donor's egg 

to enhance fertility.) So, though 

Dolly resembled her DNA 

donor, other sheep that Wilmut 

and his colleagues have cloned 

vary in appearance and 

temperament from their DNA 

donors as well as from other 

clones developed from the same 

DNA. 

It is also important to note that 

Dolly was born only after more 

than 200 other clones were 

spontaneously aborted or 

stillborn. Attempts to clone 

animals since have often 

resulted in severe birth defects 

— from dramatically increased 

birth size to enlarged organs to 

immune deficiencies. Going 

back to the blueprint analogy, 

Cornell professor and cloning 

expert Jonathan Hill adds, "It 

seems the cloned DNA is not 

only a 'used' blueprint but one 

that may have certain pages 

stuck together, making some of 

the details particularly hard to 

read." 

As a result of these and other 

factors, many scientists — and 

politicians — believe there 

should be a ban on human 

cloning. Others are wary that 

such a ban might be too 

restrictive, since some 

techniques used in cloning are 

also used in other promising 

areas of science — including 

applications of IVF technology 

and stem cell research. 

STEM CELL RESEARCH 

Cloning and stem cell research 

are connected in at least one 

important way. Every one of the 

trillions of cells in our bodies 

(including our eggs and sperm, 

which have but one set instead 

of two) contain the same DNA. 

The cells in your skin, for 

example, contain the same gene 

for producing insulin as those in 

certain regions of your pancreas, 

but only the latter actually make 

the protein. Most of the genes in 

our cells are inactive, leaving 

only the relevant ones to do 

their work. Though we know 

little about how this occurs, we 

do know that there is a period 

early in development when the 

cells have yet to begin the 

processes of determination and 

differentiation into blood, 

muscle or any other kind of cell, 

and all cells can still develop 

into any cell in the adult. In 

humans, this property — called 

pluripotency — is lost by the 

end of the second week after 

fertilization. 

Part of what made Wilmut's 

success with Dolly so 

extraordinary was that he seems 

to have been able to revert an 

adult sheep cell back to its 

pluripotent state (though with 

all of the unexplained 

complications we've already 

detailed). Other techniques are 

being pursued for isolating adult 

stem cells — cells that are only 

partially differentiated — and 

reverting them to a pluripotent 

state, or nudging them to 

develop in particular directions. 

In the meantime, there is 

another source of pluripotent 

cells: the embryo itself. 

Pluripotent cells from human 

embryos are the embryonic stem 

cells at the center of last 

summer's debate. 

Much of that continuing debate 

centers on the fact that human 

embryonic stem cells are 

obtained, almost exclusively, 

from embryos left over from 

IVF. Though proponents of 

research on them point out that 

they would be destroyed 

anyway, many opponents 

believe that these embryos, 

though comp0sed of just a few 

dozen cells, are human lives, 

and so should be saved. 

The other reason that stem cells 

have burst into the news has to 

do with their exceptional 

promise. Scientists have learned 

to culture human embryonic 

stem cells and allow them to 

divide and multiply, while 

preventing them from switching 

on or off any of their genes. By 

exposing these stem cells to 

different molecular compounds, 

they are trying to understand 

how that switching process 

works so that they can direct 

this cell to become a neuron, 

say, or that one to become a 

blood cell. (These two 

examples, in fact, are feats at 

which they have already had 

some measure of success.) 

Eventually, some believe, we 

may be able to control the 

development of these 

pluripotent cells so that we can 

replace tissues damaged by 

disease or accident. Nerve cells 

damaged by Parkinson's or 

spinal cord injury, for example, 

or heart tissue of cardiac 

patients, might ultimately be 

replaced by tissue grown from 

stem cells. 

Some scientists see even the 

potential to create custom-made 

tissue by using stem cells that 

are exact matches to a particular 

person, thus obviating the 

greatest problem in transplant 

surgery — rejection of the 

implant by the host's immune 

system. "Therapeutic cloning," 

as this procedure has been 

called, would involve inserting a



patient's own DNA into an egg 

and then prompting the cell and 

egg to fuse and start dividing, as 

was done in creating Dolly. 

Each cell in the resulting 

embryo, and thus its stem cells, 

would have exactly the same 

DNA as the patient, and tissues 

derived from these cells would 

match exactly the patient's own 

tissues. 

Along the wide spectrum of 

debate, there are those for whom 

embryonic stem cell research is 

acceptable as long as embryos 

are used with the consent of the 

egg and/or sperm donors (or, in 

the case of therapeutic cloning, 

the sole DNA donor); there are 

those who believe it is 

acceptable as long as it is done 

with embryos that would be 

destroyed anyway; and there are 

those for whom destroying even 

these "extra" embryos is 

abhorrent, and creating embryos 

for research or therapy all the 

more so. 

President Bush, in his August 

address, announced that the 

federal government would fund 

research with human embryonic 

stem cells but only that which 

uses those "lines" (cells 

developed from the original 

stem cells of a single embryo) 

already in existence. The 

scientific community has argued 

(and the administration has 

conceded) that there are fewer 

lines developed for research 

than the "more than 60" the 

President mentioned in his 

speech. Those that do exist, they 

say, may be inappropriate for 

use in human therapies, because 

they have been cultivated in 

mouse-cell cultures and 

represent a very limited gene 

pool. Other critics of the 

President's position point out 

that — as in many areas of 

research — curbing public 

funding does not mean that the 

research won't go on, just that it 

will go on, unregulated, under 

private sponsorship. Still others 

feel that the President was 

James Trefil, a professor of physics at George Mason University, is a frequent contributor. 

wrong to let any such research 

continue, let alone with public 

funding. Clearly, the debate isn't 

ending any time soon. 

We are often reminded that just 

because we can do something 

— such as exploit the latest 

technology — does not mean 

that we should. Ian Wilmut — a 

vocal opponent of human 

cloning despite (or perhaps 

because of) his work with 

animals — offers a 

complementary observation: 

"What is 'natural,'" he points 

out, "is not necessarily right, 

and what is 'unnatural' is not 

necessarily wrong." 

It is always risky navigating 

uncharted territory. President 

Bush stated it adroitly, in 

August, when he said: "As we 

go forward, I hope we will 

always be guided by...both our 

capabilities and our 

conscience."

If Not Today, Tomorrow Page 1 of 4 

New Scientist, January 11, 2003 

Title: If not today, tomorrow. (Special Report Human Cloning). 

Authors: Claire Ainsworth, Anil Anansthaswamy, Philip Cohen, David Concar, Duncan Graham-Rowe, 

Michael Le Page, and Ian Sample 

Source: New Scientist, v177 i2377 p8(4) 

Date: Jan 11, 2003 

If the first human clone has not 

been born yet, it soon will be. all 

that's needed is a lot of cash and a 

little practice, new scientist's 

investigations suggest. and while 

the risks to the child are great 

there is little prospect of a 

worldwide ban. 

EVE was born by Caesarean 

section on 26 December at an 

undisclosed location. Her 

"parents" are American and 

belong to the Raelian cult. And 

that is all we know with any 

certainty. 

According to Clonaid, a company 

set up by the Raelians, Eve is the 

world's first human clone, created 

from a skin cell taken from her 

"mother". More astonishingly, 

Clonaid claims she is not the only 

one. On 3 January it says, a second 

clone was born, to a Dutch lesbian 

couple. And, Clonaid claims, three 

more are due to be born soon. 

At the press conference in Florida 

to announce the birth of Eve, 

Brigitte Boisselier, who heads 

Clonaid, said that Michael 

Guillen — a trained physicist and 

former science editor for the US 

TV channel ABC — would 

oversee independent tests to 

confirm that Eve and the other 

babies really are clones. 

But so far there is no sign of this 

happening. Eve's "parents" have 

apparently been having second 

thoughts about testing. A case 

about to be heard in Florida, 

calling for Eve to be placed under 

court protection, is not likely to 

help persuade them. 

Guillen has now suspended the 

testing process, saying his team of 

scientists has not been given 

access and admitting that it could 

all be "an elaborate hoax" to get 

publicity for the Raelians. His 

own reputation has also come 

under fire, especially after it 

emerged that he tried to sell 

exclusive rights to the cloning 

story last year. 

An answer may be some time in 

coming. But whatever the truth, 

Clonaid is not alone. The 

controversial Italian fertility 

doctor Severino Antinori has 

claimed that a cloned baby will 

be born in January. His erstwhile 

colleague Panayiotis Zavos last 

month announced plans to clone 

babies for seven infertile couples. 

And there may be other would-be 

cloners out there who are keeping 

their plans to themselves. 

HOW DIFFICULT IS CLONING? 

So is it really feasible that 

renegade scientists could clone a 

human? 

The answer has to be yes. Unlike 

making nuclear weapons, cloning 

requires no large-scale 

infrastructure. What is needed is a 

small team of scientists willing to 

try it despite the serious risks to 

both the child and the mother; a 

million dollars or more; and, 

above all, lots of human eggs. 

This last requirement could give 

an offbeat religious sect with 

plenty of eager volunteers a big 

advantage. 

Last year Boisselier claimed 

Clonaid had collected over 300 

human eggs for its experiments 

and had lined up 50 women to 

carry cloned embryos. If true, 

such numbers would give 

practised cloners a good chance 

of success. Some animal cloners 

achieve up to three live births for 

every hundred eggs. 

The techniques are not overly 

difficult to master. Although 

methods vary from lab to lab and 

species to species, cloning usually 

involves removing the genetic 

material from an unfertilised egg 

and replacing it with that of an 

adult cell. Scientists then fool the 

egg into thinking it has been 

fertilised, usually with an electric 

pulse. 

The key tool is a 

micromanipulator, found in most 

IVF labs. This allows a skilled 

technician to grab an egg cell 

under a microscope, suck out its 

nucleus with a fine needle and 

then inject an adult nucleus using 

another needle. An alternative is 

to fuse the empty egg with a 

whole adult cell. 

Eggs are easily damaged, and 

manipulating them is tricky work 

requiring patience and a delicate 

touch. Even so, a few months of 

practice on cows' eggs taken from 

ovaries bought from a 

slaughterhouse is usually all it 

takes to get the hang of it, says 

Jose Cibelli of Michigan State 

University. 

Cibelli and his former colleagues 

at the Massachusetts-based 

cloning company Advanced Cell 

Technology are the only scientists 

to date to have attempted to clone



human embryos and publish the 

findings. Their aim was to obtain 

human stem cells. The results 

were not good: in 19 attempts 

only three embryos started 

dividing, and the growth stopped 

soon. 

But Cibelli puts this down to a 

lack of human eggs. "Success in 

cloning is a numbers game," he 

says. "With cows we have 

hundreds of eggs. In humans, 

that's a luxury you don't have." 

ACT had to pay its egg donors 

$4000 each. 

Last year, Chinese scientists 

claimed to have done much 

better, getting dozens of cloned 

embryos to grow well past the 

stage at which they are normally 

implanted during IVF. But these 

claims have yet to be confirmed. 

What's more, not every mammal 

cloning programme has 

succeeded. The millions of 

dollars spent on dog cloning have 

so far failed to produce a single 

cloned puppy, and extensive 

efforts to clone rhesus monkeys 

have not led to a single successful 

pregnancy. However, many 

experts believe that these efforts 

have failed because these species' 

reproductive systems are 

unusually difficult to manipulate, 

rather than because of any 

fundamental barrier. 

For instance, when scientists 

created ANDi, the first 

genetically modified monkey, 

their main difficulty was keeping 

the monkey embryos alive in 

culture beyond the four-cell stage. 

During IVF, human embryos are 

routinely grown past this stage. 

All this suggests that, in theory at 

least, maverick scientists could 

indeed clone a baby. But has 

Clonaid really done it? According 

to Cibelli, the main reason to be 

suspicious is that it claims to have 

produced not just one cloned 

baby, but two, with another three 

on the way and just five 

miscarriages. To have five clones 

born live from just 10 attempts 

would represent an astonishing 

success rate — especially since in 

Cibelli's experience human eggs 

are more fragile than cows' eggs. 

He is also surprised that Clonaid 

claims to have achieved all this 

by cloning skin cells. In his 

experience, the cumulus cells that 

surround developing eggs are 

better donors. 

Yet animal work has shown that 

cloning is something of an art. 

Success can be unpredictable and 

inexplicable. 

IS CLONING SAFE? 

If little Eve really is a clone, she 

could suffer a host of serious 

health problems. Some might not 

show up until she is in her sixties 

— if she survives that long. 

Although scientists still do not 

understand exactly why, cloning 

is very risky for both the 

offspring and the mother. In 

every species that has been 

cloned, the vast majority of 

cloned embryos die before birth. 

And even the clones that survive 

to birth often have debilitating or 

fatal problems. 

"There is absolutely no reason to 

expect the situation to be different 

in humans," states a letter put out 

by cloning experts Randall 

Prather and Gerald Schatten, and 

the creator of Dolly the sheep, Ian 

Wilmut. "Until there is 

compelling evidence that the 

situation is different in human 

embryos, it is grossly 

irresponsible to attempt to clone 

children." 

Cloning involves transferring the 

genetic material of an adult cell 

such as a skin cell — reportedly 

used to create Eve - to an empty 

egg. But a skin cell is 

"programmed" to be skin. That is, 

the genes needed for skin are 

turned on and the rest are turned 

off. For a cloned embryo to 

develop normally, the skin genes 

need to be turned off and 

embryonic genes turned on. 

Putting an adult nucleus into an 

egg does somehow reprogram it, 

but this process is far from 

perfect. And the physical transfer 

of the nucleus can also damage 

the delicate egg. The result is that 

some embryos never divide, 

while others don't grow enough to 

be implanted into the uterus of a 

surrogate mother. Those that 

appear healthy enough to implant 

often spontaneously abort or are 

stillborn. Only a few per cent 

survive to birth. 

The fetus isn't the only one at 

risk. Cloned animals and their 

placentas can be unusually large. 

That poses a serious threat to the 

life of the surrogate mother. A 

1999 study of 12 cows pregnant 

with cloned embryos found that a 

third died from complications. 

The few cloned animals born 

alive often suffer from a 

surprisingly wide array of 

deformities. These include: lung 

and heart problems; huge 

tongues; flattened faces; bad 

kidneys; blocked intestines; weak 

immune systems; twisted feet and 

gross obesity a few weeks after 

birth. The defects are sometimes 

so severe the animals have to be 

put down. In humans, they would 

require lifelong treatment.



Cloning companies claim most 

cow clones that do survive are 

perfectly healthy. They point out 

that "large offspring syndrome" 

also occurs in cattle created by 

IVF, so the problem may be poor 

culture conditions rather than 

cloning itself. And pig cloners 

report far fewer birth defects, 

suggesting some species are 

easier to clone than others. 

However, other scientists say it is 

too early to declare any clone 

normal. It is just six years since 

the birth of Dolly, the first cloned 

mammal, and few clones other 

than mice have yet lived out their 

natural lifespan. Dolly herself 

prematurely developed arthritis. 

What little we know suggests 

clones might die earlier than 

normal. A year ago, Japanese 

researchers reported that 83 per 

cent of their cloned mice died 

after two years — over three 

times the rate for mice created by 

IVF or normal breeding. And 

some tests on cows suggest that 

clones are even less bright than 

the average bovine. 

Would-be human cloners have 

always pledged to screen out 

defective embryos to eliminate 

problems encountered with 

animal clones. Boisselier told 

New Scientist that Clonaid had 

looked at gene expression in the 

cloned human embryos it created 

and found no problems, but she 

would not reveal any details. 

Most experts say comprehensive 

tests of this kind can't be done, 

because the genetic defects in 

clones are believed to be too 

subtle and too widespread to 

screen for with existing 

technology. Researchers recently 

showed that there are dramatic 

abnormalities in the level of 

activity of hundreds of genes in 

the placentas of cloned mice. 

They also detected a similar but 

lower level of genetic chaos in the 

livers of newborn mice clones. 

Measuring and predicting the 

effects of these abnormalities in 

every tissue of a developing fetus 

is impossible. 

HOW CAN WE TELL IT A CLONE 

REALLY IS A CLONE? 

Verifying whether a baby is a 

clone or not is straightforward 

with modern DNA fingerprinting 

technology. But with all the 

secrecy surrounding maverick 

cloners, satisfying sceptical 

scientists will not be easy. 

"Extraordinary claims have to be 

supported by extraordinary 

evidence," says the inventor of 

DNA fingerprinting, Alec 

Jeffreys of the University of 

Leicester. "That means bringing 

into force the full weight of 

forensic DNA typing systems, 

including all the safeguards and 

procedures that exist in that 

technology." 

DNA fingerprinting looks at 

highly variable regions of our 

genome, in which short 

sequences are repeated many 

times. The number of times a 

particular sequence is repeated 

varies from person to person, and 

on each of the two copies of each 

chromosome. The chances of two 

people having the same pattern is 

extremely small. 

A normal child's DNA fingerprint 

would be a combination of those 

of its parents. But a cloned baby 

would have just one "parent", and 

their DNA fingerprints should be 

exactly the same. Of course, 

mutations can occur in any cell in 

the body, so it is possible that the 

clone's profile would differ very 

slightly from the "parent", 

requiring further testing. 

However, it is not enough for 

self-proclaimed cloners to 

provide matching samples. They 

have to prove that one sample is 

from the child and the other from 

the person cloned. Given the 

controversy surrounding such 

claims, it is crucial that the entire 

process is foolproof. "What you 

need is some trustworthy person 

to take the samples," says Rudolf 

Jaenisch, a cloning expert at the 

Whitehead Institute in Boston. 

Jeffreys goes further. He insists 

that the sampling and testing 

should be done independently by 

not just one, but two labs. 

"Ideally, the entire procedure 

should be videotaped all the way 

through to ensure that there's no 

possibility of sample 

substitution." 

Even then, Jeffreys suspects that 

more testing will be called for. 

"The scepticism in the scientific 

community will be so intense that 

there will be some suspicion that 

very clever substitution has 

occurred," he says. 

But there is a way to check. A 

little of the DNA in cells is found 

outside the nucleus, in organelles 

called mitochondria. The 

mitochondria in a clone come 

from the donor of the egg, rather 

than from the person cloned. So 

as long as Eve's mother didn't 

provide the donor egg as well as 

the skin cell that was cloned, a 

mitochondrial DNA test could 

help settle any argument over the 

source of the samples. 

CAN WE STOP WOULD-BE 

CLONERS? 

"We must prevent human cloning 

by stopping it before it starts,"



announced President Bush last 

April. Yet if Clonaid is to be 

believed, the first human clone 

was already growing in her 

mother's womb as these words 

were uttered. 

Despite the almost universal 

condemnation of the renegade 

cloners such as Clonaid, 

preventing human cloning will 

not be easy. Since Dolly the 

cloned sheep was born six years 

ago, the prospect of human 

cloning has prompted over 40 

countries to ban it (see Map). 

There has also been an attempt by 

the UN to piece together an 

international treaty banning 

human cloning. 

But even if such a treaty gets off 

the ground, it will only be 

effective in the states that sign up 

to it, says Frederick Kirgis, an 

expert in international law at the 

Washington and Lee University 

in Virginia. Each country would 

have to amend its domestic law to 

bring the treaty's provisions into 

force, which could take many 

years. And there is always the 

possibility that non-signatory 

states will allow human cloning 

to go ahead. 

UN treaties can often be breached 

with impunity, says Kirgis. 

"Some treaties have enforcement 

mechanisms written into them," 

he says. "But most of them don't." 

Despite broad support for a ban, 

not to mention the new sense of 

urgency brought on by the 

announcement of Eve, there is 

still a complete lack of consensus 

on how it should be carried out, 

says Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist 

at the University of Pennsylvania 

in Philadelphia and an adviser to 

the UN committee dealing with 

cloning. The best we could hope 

for at present is a moratorium, he 

says. 

The problem is that while some 

countries want a blanket ban on 

all forms of human cloning, 

others such as Britain believe any 

ban should exclude therapeutic 

cloning — creating cloned 

embryos to obtain embryonic 

stem cells for treating diseases. 

To get round this, some countries 

have suggested that the UN 

should ban reproductive cloning 

now and worry about therapeutic 

cloning later. But Spain and other 

states oppose this because they 

see no legal or moral distinction 

between therapeutic and 

reproductive cloning. 

Nowhere is the division on this 

issue greater than in the US. 

George Bush has lent his support 

to a bill that would make human 

cloners liable to up to 10 years in 

prison and a $100,000 fine. A 

second bill introduced by 

Republican senator Arlene 

Spector would ban only 

reproductive cloning. 

Perhaps the way forward would 

be to copy South Korea's 

approach, where last week 

officials raided Clonaid's local 

subsidiary. Korean law does not 

ban cloning, but officials are 

considering bringing charges on 

the grounds of unsafe medical 

practice. 

RELATED ARTICLE: 

CLONING IS THE EASY 

PART... 

For Clonaid, cloning humans is 

just the start. The next step, the 

Raelians say, is to use clones to 

make people immortal. 

All you have to do — once you 

have "speed-grown" a cloned cell 

into an adult — is to wipe their 

memory, erase their personality 

and then replace both of them 

with the memories and 

personality from the wannabe 

immortal. 

It sounds ludicrous, and it is. For 

starters, any clone, just like any 

twin, would be a unique 

individual. "Wiping" a clone's 

memory would be tantamount to 

murder — if it were possible. 

"Given our current state of 

knowledge, it seems unthinkable 

something like this could be 

achievable," says Michael Rugg 

of the Institute of Cognitive 

Science in London. "Memories 

aren't stored in the brain like 

books in a library." 

Scientists think that memories are 

held in the brain by modifying the 

strengths of connections between 

huge numbers of neurons. But 

there is little else they agree on. 

Just how memories are encoded 

remains a mystery, and it may 

vary for different kinds of 

memory. What's more, the brain 

has tens of billions of neurons, 

each linked to thousands of 

others. That makes the idea of 

reading memories a staggeringly 

complex proposition. 

Miguel Nicolelis at Duke 

University in Durham, North 

Carolina, is at the forefront of 

research into "reading" 

information from brains. His 

group has used the signals from a 

monkey's brain to control a robot 

arm. But he says even the 

intention to transfer one person's 

mind into another's brain is 

preposterous. "The idea is simply 

absurd," he says. "It has no 

scientific basis or merit."

Man and superman Page 1 of 3 

The Economist (US), March 29, 2003 

Title: Man and superman.(the possibility of cloning a person will require that social choices be made ). 

Source: The Economist (US), v366 i8317 

Date: March 29, 2003 

Biotechnology could transform 

humanity — provided humanity 

wishes to be transformed 

WARNING against intellectual 

arrogance, Alexander Pope 

wrote: "Know then thyself, 

presume not God to scan; the 

proper study of mankind is 

man." But his words have 

turned out to be misguided. 

Though studying man may not 

exactly have led scientists to 

scan God, it has certainly led to 

accusations that they are 

usurping His role. 

More drugs; cheaper food; 

environmentally friendly 

industry. Who could object? But 

people do. The image that 

haunts biotechnology, and 

perhaps the most influential 

piece of science fiction ever 

written, is Mary Shelley's 

"Frankenstein". When the book 

was first published in 1818, 

most people did indeed believe 

that life was created by God. 

Shelley's student doctor apes 

that act of divine creation and 

comes a cropper. He has come 

to epitomise the mad-scientist 

figure: either downright wicked, 

or at the least heedless of 

humanity's good. 

The book's subtitle, though, is 

telling: "The Modern 

Prometheus". Prometheus, in 

the Greek myth, stole fire from 

heaven and gave it to mankind 

with the intention of doing 

good. The reason Prometheus 

was punished by his particular 

set of gods was that he gave 

mankind power, and with that 

power, choice. 

Biotechnology is not about to 

create a human from off-theshelf 

chemicals, nor even from 

spare parts. But it may soon 

have the power to manipulate 

human life in ways which could 

bring benefits, but which many 

will find uncomfortable or 

abhorrent. A choice will have to 

be made. 

Clones to the left of me... 

No one has yet cloned a person, 

or genetically modified one, at 

least a whole one. But people 

are working on technologies 

that could help to do these 

things. 

An existing individual might be 

cloned in several ways. The first 

would be to persuade a cell (say 

a skin cell) from the individual 

to be cloned that it was, in fact, 

a fertilised egg. That would 

mean reactivating a whole lot of 

genes that skin cells don't need 

but eggs do. As yet, no one 

knows how to go about that. 

The second way is the Dollythe-sheep 

method, which is to 

extract the nucleus of an adult 

cell and stick it in an egg from 

which the nucleus has been 

removed. That seems to trigger 

the desired reprogramming. Or 

instead of putting the nucleus 

into an egg cell, it might be put 

into a so-called stem cell from 

an early embryo. Embryonic 

stem cells can turn into any 

other sort of cell, so might 

possibly be persuaded to turn 

into entire people. 

Regardless of that possibility, 

embryonic stem cells have 

medical promise, and several 

firms are currently studying 

them. Geron, the most advanced 

of these firms, has worked out 

how to persuade embryonic 

stem cells to turn into seven 

different types of normal cell 

line that it hopes can be used to 

repair damaged tissue. Blood 

cells could be grown in bulk for 

transfusions. Heart-muscle cells 

might help those with coronary 

disease. "Islet" insulin-secreting 

cells could treat diabetes. Boneforming 

cells would combat 

osteoarthritis. A particular type 

of nerve cell may help sufferers 

from Parkinson's disease. Cells 

called oligodendrocytes may 

even help to repair the 

insulating sheaths of nerve cells 

in people with spinal injuries. 

Geron is also working on liver 

cells. In the first instance, these 

would be used not to treat 

people, but to test potential 

drugs for toxicity, because most 

drugs are broken down in the 

liver. 

Such transplanted tissues might 

be seen as foreign by the 

immune system, but Geron is 

keeping its corporate fingers 

crossed that this can be dealt 

with. Embryos have ways of 

gulling immune systems to stop 

themselves being rejected by the 

womb. In case that does not 

work, though, the discussion has 

turned to the idea of 

transplanting adult nuclei into 

embryonic stem cells as a way 

of getting round the rejection 

problem. This idea, known in 

the trade as therapeutic cloning, 

has caused alarm bells to go off. 

The technique would create 

organs, not people, and no one 

yet knows whether it would 

work. But some countries are



getting nervous about stem-cell 

research. This nervousness has 

not been calmed by the 

activities of Advanced Cell 

Technology, a firm based in 

Worcester, Massachusetts, 

which announced in November 

2001 that it had managed the 

trick of transplanting adult 

nuclei into stem cells and 

persuading the result to divide a 

few times. In effect, ACT 

created the beginning of an 

embryo. 

Last year President George 

Bush issued a decree restricting 

federal funding in America to 

existing embryonic stem-cell 

lines. Attempts are now being 

made in Congress to ban it 

altogether. Reversing the usual 

traffic flow, some American 

scientists have upped sticks and 

gone to Britain, where the 

regulations on such research are 

liberal and settled. Some 

countries, indeed, have more 

than just settled regulations. 

Singapore, for example, is 

actively recruiting people who 

want to work on the human 

aspects of biotechnology. China, 

too, is said to be interested. 

Cynics might regard this as 

opportunism. But not everyone's 

moral code is shaped by Judeo- 

Christian ethics — and besides, 

moral codes can change. 

At the moment, cloning 

mammals is a hazardous 

business. It usually requires 

several hundred attempts to get 

a clone, and the resulting animal 

is frequently unhealthy, 

probably because the original 

transplanted nucleus has been 

inadequately reprogrammed. 

Nor does there seem to be much 

of a market, so no one is trying 

very hard. 

Genetic modification is a 

different matter. GTC's drugproducing 

and Nexia's silkproducing 

goats are valuable, 

and people are putting in serious 

work on the technology. If 

someone wanted to add the odd 

gene or two to a human egg, 

they could probably do so. 

Indeed, something quite similar 

is already being done, although 

under another name: gene 

therapy intended to deal with 

illnesses such as cystic fibrosis 

is in fact a type of genetic 

modification, although 

admittedly one that is not passed 

from parent to offspring. But 

extending gene therapy to germ 

cells, to stop the disease being 

passed on, is under discussion. 

..jokers to the right? 

A scene in "Blade Runner", a 

film that asks Shelleyesque 

questions about the nature of 

humanity, is set in the 

headquarters of a prosperouslooking 

biotechnology 

company. The firm makes 

"replicants", robots that look 

like humans, and the firm's boss 

describes how they are grown 

from a single cell. The 

replicants, it is plain, are 

genetically modified people 

without any legal rights. In this 

dystopia, it is the unaltered 

humans who rule. By contrast, 

"GATTACA", another movie 

set in a genetically modified 

future, has the modified in 

charge. They are beautiful, 

gifted and intelligent. It is those 

who remain untouched by 

modification who suffer. 

All this is in the realm of 

fiction, but the contrasting 

views of the potential effects of 

genetic modification point to an 

important truth about any 

technology. What really matters 

is not what is possible, but what 

people make of those 

possibilities. In the fantasy 

worlds of science fiction, people 

are frequently dominated by the 

technology they have created, 

and made miserable as a result. 

Yet so far, the real technological 

future ushered in by the 

industrial revolution has defied 

the fantasists. Dystopia has 

failed to materialise. 

Perhaps, one day, some tyrant 

will try to breed a race of 

replicant slaves, but it seems 

unlikely. It seems much safer to 

predict that the rich will attempt 

to buy themselves and their 

children genetic privileges if 

and when these become 

available. But there is nothing 

new in the rich trying to buy 

privileges. The antidote is not a 

Draconian ban on basic 

research, but reliance on the 

normal checks and balances, 

both legal and social, of a liberal 

society. These have worked in 

the past, and seem likely to 

work in the future. 

Tyranny, by definition, is 

incompatible with liberalism. 

More subtly, the one nearuniversal 

feature of technologies 

in liberal societies is that in time 

popular ones get cheaper as 

market competition does its 

work. Personal genetic 

modification may start out 

aristocratic, but if it does turn 

out to be a good thing, it will 

become demotic. Conceivably, 

it may indeed prove to be the 

field's killer application. And 

perhaps it is a useful antidote to 

hysteria to point out that trite, 

fun applications — say, 

temporarily changing your skin 

pigmentation — are 

conceivable, too. 

Critics may say that decisions 

on cloning and germ-line



modification are different, 

because they affect an unborn 

individual who has no say in the 

matter. But equivalent decisions 

about the unborn are routinely 

made already, albeit with the 

watchful eye of the law firmly 

on the decision-maker. 

Even if people do not choose to 

alter themselves, though, 

biotechnology is likely to 

become ubiquitous. Its potential 

is too great to neglect. Its 

current woes will come to be 

seen as mere teething troubles. 

The first route to ubiquity is 

likely to be via the chemical 

industry. As people become 

more confident about 

manipulating enzymes and 

micro-organisms, ever larger 

swathes of industrial chemistry 

will fall into biotech's grip. Like 

existing chemistry, though, the 

results will be taken for granted 

almost instantly. 

Health care will also be 

revolutionised by biotech: not 

merely through new drugs, but 

through the ability to deploy 

them precisely and to anticipate 

the need for their use from 

studies of an individual's 

haplotype. Medicine will 

become less of an art and more 

of a science. It may even become 

a consumer good, if drugs 

intended to let people operate 

beyond their natural capacities 

are developed. That, though, is 

another area fraught with moral 

difficulties. 

What remains unclear is the 

extent to which bioengineered 

organisms will become products 

in their own right. The raspberry 

blown at GM crops, which are 

the only transgenic species on 

the market at the moment, does 

not encourage the idea that 

modified organisms will be 

welcomed with open arms. But 

captive, genetically modified 

micro-organisms, such as those 

that would run Dr Venter's 

putative solar-powered fuel cells, 

probably do have a big future. 

Large organisms, too, may be 

exploited in ways as yet hard to 

imagine: furniture that is grown, 

rather than made; clothing that 

eats the dead skin its wearer 

sheds; miniature pet dragons 

(fire-breathing optional) as 

household pets. Whatever 

happens, however, it will be 

because somebody wants it to. 

Bacon was right. Knowledge is 

power — and generally a power 

for good. The century of Watson 

and Crick is just beginning.

Seeing Double: The Cloning Conundrum Page 1 of 8 

Canadian Speeches, November-December 2002 

Title: Seeing double: the cloning conundrum.(Leah Taylor address)(Transcript). 

Author: Leah Taylor 

Source: Canadian Speeches, Nov-Dec 2002 v16 i5 p4(10) 

Hundreds of countries around the 

world are scrambling to ban the 

human cloning that scientists are 

convinced can do so much to cure 

disease and infertility. Both 

advocates and opponents strive to 

convince the public that their side 

is the right one. The debate over 

human cloning is definitively 

changing how people view 

human life. The question is, 

which side will prevail? 

Ever wanted a twin? For 

$200,000 perhaps you can! That 

is, if human cloning isn't banned 

world-wide first. 

Human cloning has moved from 

science-fiction novels, to science 

laboratories. Pro-human cloning 

companies are racing to create the 

first cloned child, or make a 

breakthrough in stem cell 

research, before, what they feel 

are harmful laws, can be passed 

to prevent them. 

Opponents are racing against 

them to ban human cloning and 

head off what they dread as an 

abomination to human rights. 

Proponents of human cloning are 

convinced that the technology 

may be the miracle cure for 

virtually all human physical 

ailments. They are certain that 

infertility problems can be solved, 

children whose lives were cut 

short by some horrific accident 

can be brought back, organ 

transplants can occur without risk 

of rejection, and mankind can 

assist in human evolution through 

the manipulation of genes. 

Opponents fear human cloning 

will turn human life from a gift to 

a commodity that can be bought 

and sold. They say that there are 

viable alternatives that can cure 

the same ailments, and that 

human life should not be 

manipulated simply to satisfy the 

curiosity of scientists and their 

financial gain. 

ATTACK OF THE CLONES IN THE 

20TH AND 21ST CENTURY 

Human cloning has in fact always 

been a part of human life. Nature 

created the first human clones; 

identical twins. Identical twins 

start as one fertilized egg that 

splits in half to create two human 

beings with identical DNA and 

physical attributes. 

Cloning is a natural way of 

reproduction for many organisms, 

such as bacteria, yeasts and even 

some snails and shrimp. These 

organisms, procreate by cloning 

themselves, bypassing the need 

for a mate. 

Not until the 20th century have 

scientists sought to clone 

organisms that procreate sexually. 

In 1938 Hans Spemann, winner 

of the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 

1935, proposed a "fantastical 

experiment." He suggested that 

by removing the nucleus from a 

cell of a late-stage embryo, child, 

or adult, and transplanting it into 

an egg, humans could create life 

through cloning. The first cloning 

experiment, however, was not 

until 1952 when biologists Robert 

Briggs and Thomas King used a 

pipette to suck the nucleus out of 

a cell of an advanced frog embryo 

and inserted it into a frog egg. 

This first attempt failed; the egg 

did not develop. 

Little progress was made in the 

cloning of animals until 1984, 

when Danish scientist Steen 

Willadsen cloned a live lamb 

from immature sheep embryo 

cells — the first successful 

embryonic cloning of sheep. He 

took the nucleus from a multi-cell 

sheep embryo, implanted it into 

an egg, which developed into a 

fetus, and was born a healthy 

lamb. This technique was later 

repeated successfully with 

animals such as cattle, pigs, goats, 

rabbits and rhesus monkeys. 

Thirteen years later came a more 

controversial breakthrough — the 

first successful cloning from adult 

cells. Dr. Ian Wilmut, a Scottish 

embryologist, began his 

experiments in 1996 and in 1997 

shocked the world with the news 

that he had cloned a 6-year-old 

adult sheep from an udder cell. 

This was the first clone from 

adult cells. The cloned lamb, 

Dolly, was the only clone to 

survive from 277 eggs that had 

been fused with adult cells. With 

Dolly as living evidence, the 

human cloning debate truly 

began. 

In January, 1998, Dr. Richard 

Seed, a Chicago physicist, 

announced his intention to clone a 

human being. Seed was a codeveloper 

of the technology that 

transfers embryos from one 

women's womb to another's. 

Many other scientists and 

companies joined the race to 

clone the first human being. 

Advanced Cell Technologies 

(ACT) reported the first 

successful cloning of a human 

embryo in November 1998, by 

removing DNA from the skin of a 

man's leg and inserting it into a 

cow's egg, which had previously 

had its nucleus removed. The 

embryo was allowed to develop



for 12 days before they halted the 

experiment for ethical reasons. 

This outraged many people. The 

United States, Canada, and many 

other countries began seriously 

considering laws to ban human 

cloning. In the year 2000, only 

10% of polled Canadians were in 

favor of cloning. 

Despite little public support, 

some businesses are racing to 

clone the first human. Perhaps the 

most implausible is Clonaid, a 

company formed by the Reaelian 

Movement, a spiritual group 

which believes that human life 

originated with visitors from 

outerspace. In 2000, Clonaid, 

claiming to be the first human 

cloning company, reported that it 

was going to clone a deceased 10month-old 

child. It claims to have 

been contacted by many other 

parents who have lost children. 

Clonaid said it would produce the 

first cloned baby born in 2001, 

but no evidence that this goal was 

attained. 

ACT has had more luck. In 

January of 2001, its researchers 

succeeded in combining an adult 

human cell with a human egg and 

saw it begin to divide, but 

inexplicably stopped at the sixcell 

stage. 

In May 2002, Hans Schoeler of 

the University of Pennsylvania's 

veterinary school, announced that 

he had discovered a single 

misbehaving gene that could 

explain most failures to clone 

mammals. The Oct4 gene is 

crucial for early development and 

is usually not reprogrammed 

properly when cloned. Schoeler 

claims that 90% of all cloned 

embryos that fail to develop are 

caused by this gene. No solution 

has been discovered to reprogram 

the gene properly. 

As of July 2002, China is 

reported to have cloned more than 

30 human embryos for medical 

research; an Italian doctor 

Severino Antinori claims the 

world's first human created by 

cloning will be born in 

December, but will not reveal the 

identity of the parents; and the 

South Korean government is 

investigating a claim that Clonaid 

has implanted a cloned embryo in 

a Korean woman, who is almost 

three months pregnant. 

While these claims are not yet 

validated, we might before 2004 

have in our midst the first cloned 

human baby. The next few years 

will be defining moments in 

human history, as a great 

revolution in the way people view 

human life and cloning rolls on. 

LAYING DOWN THE LAW 

• In Canada. There are no laws 

passed prohibiting or 

regulating human cloning in 

Canada. The federal 

government has introduced a 

bill called the Assisted 

Human Reproduction Act 

(AHRA). 

The bill has two fundamental 

goals. Firstly, for people to 

have children safely and 

ethically, and secondly, to 

ensure research into 

reproductive technologies is 

done in a morally acceptable 

manner. 

The bill calls for a ban on 

human cloning to preserve 

and protect human 

individuality and health risks. 

It prohibits the cloning of 

stem cells, but advocates 

using human embryos and 

stem cells in research which 

are left over from assisted 

reproduction attempts. The 

bill denounces the buying 

and selling of human 

embryos. 

If the bill passes, parents will 

not be able to select the 

gender of their child or make 

changes to human DNA that 

would pass from one 

generation to the next. 

• In the United States. 

President Bush made a 

speech on April 10, 2002, 

condemned therapeutic and 

reproductive cloning, stating 

that, "Life is a creation, not a 

commodity." He said he 

would allow federally-funded 

research to proceed only on 

the very limited number of 

existing stem cells. 

There is still no legislation to 

ban cloning, but Senator Sam 

Brownback, a Republican 

from Kansas, has proposed a 

permanent ban and criminal 

penalties for any scientist or 

company that violates it. The 

bill is entitled the "Human 

Cloning Prohibition Act of 

2001." 

As a result of the lack of 

federal funding, much of the 

therapeutic cloning research 

that would have been 

conducted in the United 

States might now be 

conducted in other countries. 

• United Nations and the 

World. The Universal 

Declaration on the Human 

Genome and Human Rights, 

adopted by the UN's General 

Conference in 1997 and 

endorsed in 1998, banned 

reproductive human cloning. 

France and Germany 

proposed a resolution asking 

the General Assembly to 

create a special committee to 

draft a legally binding 

international convention



banning human cloning. The 

measure was endorsed by the 

General Assembly's legal 

committee, and now in 2002 

it is holding an international 

convention to negotiate with 

168 countries on banning the 

practice. 

FROM SCIENCE FICTION TO 

SCIENCE 

The word "cloning" is of Greek 

origin and means "asexual 

reproduction." Human cloning is 

the reproduction of genetically 

identical humans. The method for 

human cloning is nuclear transfer 

(somatic cell nuclear transfer, 

SCNT). In SCNT, the nucleus is 

removed from an egg, a cell with 

another person's DNA is inserted 

and induced into an embryo. This 

method, has two very distinct 

uses: reproductive and therapeutic 

cloning. 

The goal of human reproductive 

cloning is to produce a child 

genetically identical to another 

individual. Many people with 

fertility problems advocate 

reproductive cloning as a last 

effort to raise a child of their own. 

Therapeutic cloning's objective is 

to produce embryonic stem cells, 

which are undifferentiated cells 

capable of specializing into 

almost any type of cell in the 

body. With these stem cells, 

scientists can theoretically create 

transplant organs that are 

genetically identical to the ill 

person's, eliminating the chances 

of rejection. Possible treatments 

may be derived from therapeutic 

cloning for diseases such as 

Alzheimer's, Parkinsons, and 

kidney failure. 

HEALTH RISKS 

It is unarguable that there are 

great health risks to both the child 

and mother in reproductive 

cloning. 

If reproductive cloning was 

attempted in humans, the risks of 

hormonal manipulation in the egg 

donor,, multiple miscarriages in 

the birth mother, and womb 

cancer are very real possibilities 

for both the donor and 

prospective mother. 

As for the cloned child, there is a 

very high risk of severe 

developmental abnormalities, and 

the possibility of being born with 

the genetic age of the person who 

donated their DNA for cloning. 

Dolly's genetic age is six years 

older than it should be, as the 

gene responsible for aging was 

not reversed in the process of 

cloning. This could dramatically 

shorten a child's life-span. 

Scientists have demonstrated that 

the life-span of a cell can be 

restored through cloning, but the 

technique is not yet consistent. 

Researchers have found that more 

than half of all clones that 

develop into fetuses form lifethreatening 

abnormalities such as 

defects of the heart, lungs, and 

other organs, many of them fatal 

before birth, or shortly after. The 

cause of these abnormalities is 

still a mystery. Gerald Schatten, a 

reproductive cloning researcher at 

the Oregon Regional Primate 

Research Centre, along with the 

rest of the team, feels that you 

don't have to know why cloned 

animals die of such bizarre 

abnormalities to know that the 

same thing could happen in 

cloned humans. 

But doctors don't all agree on 

whether or not therapeutic 

cloning should be banned because 

of these risks. Some doctors 

argue that prospective parents are 

legally able to conceive and carry 

to term infants that have a serious 

risk or certainty that they will be 

born with a severely disabling 

genetic disease. While some 

people may think bringing to 

term a disabled child is immoral, 

the parents hold the right to 

reproductive freedom. Many of 

the same genetic risks associated 

with SCNT cloning are similar to 

those for in-vitro fertilization 

(IVF), and are no greater than 

those with genetic disorders. For 

this reason, advocates say, 

reproductive cloning should be no 

more restricted than IVF or other 

established forms of procreation. 

Law Professor John Robertson 

argued before the American 

National Bioethics Commission 

(ANBAC) board on March 13, 

1997, that harm cannot be 

accurately determined until trials 

are conducted on humans, and 

that the risks are justifiable if the 

prospective parents deem them to 

be. 

Many nations reject these 

arguments and prohibit human 

reproductive cloning on ethical or 

spiritual grounds and because 

they believe the risks outweigh 

any possible benefits at this time. 

HEALTHY REASONS TO CLONE 

Proponents claim that human 

cloning technology will 

revolutionize health care. The 

Human Cloning Foundation has 

listed many reasons why it 

believes cloning will result in 

better health, not worse. 

• Reversal of heart attacks. 

Pro-cloning scientists believe 

that they may be able to treat 

heart attack victims by 

cloning their healthy heart 

cells and injecting them into 

the areas of the heart that 

have been damaged. 

• Cancer. Cloning technology 

could enable scientists to learn



how to switch cells on and 

off, enabling them to cure 

cancer. It will also help them 

understand why cancerous 

cells lose their differentiation 

and divide at a faster rate. 

• Leukemia. Cloning bone 

marrow for children and 

adults suffering from 

leukemia is expected to be 

one of the first benefits 

reaped from cloning 

technology. 

• Cystic fibrosis. There is a 

strong possibility that 

scientists may be able to 

produce effective genetic 

therapy against cystic 

fibrosis. Ian Wilmut and 

colleagues are already 

working on this. 

• Spinal Injury. Christopher 

Reed, the paralyzed film 

actor who played the title role 

in a Superman movie, is 

among those urging research 

on growing nerves or spinal 

cords for paralyzed people to 

regain control of movement. 

None of these possible treatments 

have been tested on humans yet, 

but Dr. Robert Lanza, working 

with ACT, created working 

artificial kidneys from cells taken 

from cloned cow embryos. The 

kidneys were implanted into the 

cow whose DNA generated the 

clone and were not rejected. The 

cow is alive and healthy today. 

The other treatment possibilities 

are not yet confirmed, and some 

skeptics say they are unlikely to 

develop many of these treatments 

for humans. 

DEFINING INDIVIDUALITY BY 

GENETICS 

Cloning cells to treat illness is 

one thing: cloning a whole person 

is an entirely different matter. The 

physical health risks to clones are 

of dire concern, as are the 

potential psychological harms to 

cloned children. The most 

frequent fear voiced by 

psychologists is the possible loss 

of a sense of uniqueness and 

individuality. Reproductive 

cloning creates serious issues of 

identity and forces society to reevaluate 

how we define 

ourselves. Gilbert Meilaender, in 

his testimony before ANBAC on 

March 13, 1997, commented on 

the importance of genetic 

uniqueness: 

"Our children begin with a kind 

of genetic independence of us, 

their parents. They replicate 

neither their father nor their 

mother. That is a reminder of 

their independence..." 

Reproductive cloning would 

create a genetic twin separated 

only by time. With the identical 

appearance of a person that has 

already lived, expectations for 

this twin could be very high. If 

one was to clone Albert Einstein, 

people would expect the clone to 

be a scientific genius, and he 

would always be forced to 

compare him or herself to his 

genetic predecessor's 

accomplishments, some argue. 

However, this argument 

disregards the natural phenomena 

of many identical twins, who 

grow up to have distinctly 

different personalities, with no 

serious psychological harm 

because of their identical DNA. 

Others say that the concept that a 

clone is less unique, less distinct, 

and less in control of his or her 

own destiny discriminates against 

not only potential clones, but also 

naturally-identical twins. 

But philosopher Hans Jonas feels 

differently on the subject of 

twins. Jonas argues that human 

cloning, where there is a time gap 

between the genetically identical 

individuals, and the simultaneous 

beginning of life for naturally 

identical twins are fundamentally 

different. Naturally-identical 

twins grow up at the same time, 

each unaware of the other 

person's future life choices. This 

ignorance of what their genetic 

counterpart's life choices will be 

gives them a future where they 

are free to choose their own 

direction in life. However, if a 

twin is later created by cloning, it 

grow up with the knowledge of 

what place their older twin had in 

the world, and a sense that its life 

has already been played out. This 

later twin, Jonas claims, would 

lose his sense of spontaneity and 

the authenticity of becoming a 

unique self. Jonas claims that it is 

tyrannical and cruel for the earlier 

twin to try and determine 

another's fate this way. 

Even if the later twin did not 

believe in genetic determinism, 

and led a life of its own, it would 

still be haunted and influenced by 

the life of its predecessor. Its life 

might be shaped by its 

predecessor in ways that other 

lives are not, because other lives 

are genetically unique. 

All these theories are quite 

speculative, and are directly 

related to cultural values. The 

psychological effect of growing 

up a clone is highly 

circumstantial, and subject to 

many uncertainties. 

A concern voiced by many is the 

legal and social status of a cloned 

child in the family structure. For 

some, the contrast between the 

child's genetic and social identity 

is a threat to the family structure. 

Questions about a cloned child's 

place in the family will not be 

easily answered. Because its 

genes will be identical to the



genes of one of its parents," 

questions such as "Are you my 

sibling or my parent?" or" Am I 

the child or the grandchild of my 

grandparents?" would inevitably 

be asked. 

The child's psychological 

development and social status 

could be at risk and the common 

family structure undermined. 

Some also say it may be harder 

for a child to gain independence 

from a parent who is actually his 

or her own twin. 

Others are not persuaded by such 

objections. Children born through 

other assisted reproductive 

technologies also have 

complicated relationships to their 

genetic, gestational, and rearing 

parents. There is no evidence that 

confusion over family roles has 

harmed children born into these 

families, but there have also been 

few studies on the subject. 

Another disturbing prospect to 

some people, is the fact that if this 

technology were legalized, 

women would not need men to 

procreate, causing what they say 

is a dangerous imbalance in 

gender equality. 

With this technology, the idea of 

"family" as we understand it, may 

irrevocably change. 

RELIGION VS. SCIENCE... AGAIN. 

Religious organizations are often 

the most prominent voices in the 

cloning debate. Almost every 

major organized religion has 

made an official statement on its 

position. Most condemn it, while 

a smaller number are advocates. 

Many of the bills proposed to ban 

human cloning, especially in the 

United States, make little 

reference to safety issues; they 

condemn human cloning 

regardless of whether it may 

prove that safe and effective. 

Religious perspectives and ethics 

are the predominant arguments. 

Proponents are often angry at 

some of the religious edicts and 

denunciations of cloning 

technology. Adrienne Ross, the 

mother of Trevor, a boy with a 

rare genetic disease, is trying to 

save her son by using therapeutic 

cloning with the help of ACT. 

She states bluntly, "To me, it's 

like how dare they tell me that I 

cannot save my son's life?... If 

you want to practice your 

religion, practice your religion, 

but not when it interferes with 

other people's lives." She feels 

that religious groups are telling 

her to "let your child die because 

my religious belief is more 

important than your child's life." 

Despite such antipathy by some, 

the religious perspectives plays a 

large part in the decisions society 

is make about this new 

technology. 

• Islam. The Islamic 

perspective on human 

cloning is deeply rooted in 

the Muslim beliefs and 

interpretations of the Qur'an, 

which is the believed to be 

directly from Allah. 

According to Professor 

Abdulaziz Sachedian, the 

Islamic assessment of 

reproductive cloning focuses 

predominantly on how the 

technology may effect 

familial relationships. He 

says that reproductive 

cloning would be permissible 

only within the male-female 

relationship to alleviate 

infertility. 

Therapeutic cloning is more 

permissible, but there is some 

debate as to the status of an 

embryo's human rights 

beginning after 40 days or 

120 days in the womb. Since 

therapeutic cloning uses 

embryos under 14 days old, it 

poses few if any ethical 

problems for Muslims. 

Roman Catholicism. The 

official Roman Catholic 

position on human cloning is 

perhaps the most clear-cut. 

They zealously oppose both 

therapeutic and reproductive 

cloning and feel that "every 

possible act of cloning 

humans is intrinsically evil." 

Roman Catholics are 

opposed to therapeutic 

cloning because they give an 

embryo the status and rights 

of a born person, therefore it 

would be murder to create 

and then destroy an embryo 

purely for research. 

Their opposition to 

reproductive cloning is 

simply that, like many other 

artificial reproductive 

techniques, it severs human 

procreation from sexuality 

and marriage. 

• Protestantism. The large 

number of different 

denominations in Protestant 

Christendom preclude 

blanket statements. 

Fundamentalist and 

evangelical denominations 

such as the Southern Baptist 

Convention or the Lutheran 

Church official statements 

uniformly denounce both 

reproductive and therapeutic 

cloning. This is based on the 

belief that the creation and 

destruction of human 

embryos for research 

purposes is immoral, and 

that cloning turns 

procreation into manufacture 

instead of a union between a



lawfully wed man and 

woman. 

One visible evangelical 

opponent, Gilbert Meilaender, 

spoke before the National 

Bioethics Advisory 

Commission in 1997. He 

voiced the view of many 

evangelical Protestant groups, 

that through human cloning, 

children become man-made 

instruments and personal 

projects, not equal partners 

with ourselves in humanity. 

Liberal Protestant groups 

often make a distinction 

between reproductive and 

therapeutic cloning. 

Reproductive cloning is 

unanimously considered evil, 

but positions on therapeutic 

cloning are not clearly 

defined. The Presbyterian 

Church supports therapeutic 

cloning in the use of stem 

cells, and the United Church 

of Canada stated that 

embryos do not have the 

same status as born persons 

and supports stem cell 

research as well. 

• Judaism: There are no 

universally recognized 

authorities within Judaism, 

however, Jewish theologians 

and jurists most often support 

reproductive cloning if it is 

used to relieve suffering in 

some way. 

Rabbi Michael Broyde states 

that "...when no other method 

is available [for procreation] 

it would appear that Jewish 

law accepts that having 

children through cloning is 

perhaps a mitzvah [blessing] 

in a number of other 

circumstances." 

The healing of suffering from 

disease is a strong imperative 

in Jewish tradition, which 

leads to the general support 

of therapeutic cloning as long 

as it relieves suffering in 

some way. Unlike most 

Christian denominations, 

Jews do not give status to a 

fetus during its first 40 days 

of gestation. This 

developmental approach to 

fetal life gives no status to an 

embryo outside of a woman 

in the Jewish tradition. 

Both Orthodox and Reform 

traditions have unanimously 

called for research on 

embryonic stem cells, and 

Rabbi Moses Tendler, a 

professor of medical ethics 

and biology at Yeshiva 

University summarizes the 

Jewish perspective on 

therapeutic cloning well. He 

states that to ban therapeutic 

cloning would be "...a 

travesty ofjustice launched on 

humanity" because the 

technique "... is clearly the 

best hope man has for curing 

disease." 

WHEN DO WE BECOME HUMAN? 

Human cloning, both 

reproductive and therapeutic, 

raises the question of just what is 

a human being? 

Opponents, like Dr. Thomas 

Dooley, are adamant that human 

life begins as a one-cell embryo, 

whether it is naturally or 

technologically conceived. He 

says that "...human cloning is 

demoralizing and redefining 

human life." These cloned 

embryos are human beings, with 

the potential to grow to adulthood 

and become productive members 

of society. Dooley feels that 

reproductive and therapeutic 

cloning only differ in use: they 

still both create, manipulate and 

sometimes destroy human life. 

He says that scientists have no 

right to tamper with human life 

for the sake of scientific 

experimentation. 

But when does human life truly 

begin? Proponents for therapeutic 

cloning believe that if an embryo 

is under 14 days old, it is not yet 

truly an embryo, but a simple 

grouping of cells. This theory is 

based on something called the 

"primitive streak." The "primitive 

streak" appears after 14 days of 

embryonic development in utero. 

It is an arrow drawn on the 

embryo, one that delineates the 

head and tail, front and back. 

Until then, how many individuals, 

if any, that tiny ball of tissue will 

produce is unclear. According to 

Mike West, a scientist for ACT, 

after 14 days of gestation "There 

is no brain, no sensation, no pain, 

no memory, nothing of that. But 

it is an individualized human in a 

very early stage... but before 

then... it's just cells. It is a kind of 

raw material for life: the cellular 

life out of, which human life 

arises." 

Proponents feel that cloning 

embryos at this early stage, and 

harvesting their stem cells, in no 

way harms human life. 

Opponents say it is murder. They 

feel that human dignity and rights 

are being violated. In the eyes of 

the opponents, embryos have 

equal rights to already developed 

humans. Dr. Dooley asks, "Why 

is the life of the adult individual 

with a disease (desiring a new 

therapy) worth more than the 

intentionally-terminated innocent 

[embryo] used in the research to 

attempt to provide a "promised" 

outcome from therapeutic 

cloning? Is human life that 

cheap?" 

The question of when human life 

begins is central to the debate 

over stem cell research, but like 

many of the other questions



surrounding cloning, it is not 

easily answered. 

ALTERNATIVES? 

Opponents to therapeutic cloning 

believe that not only is it immoral 

to clone and kill for scientific 

progress, it is also unnecessary. 

There is no real imperative for 

therapeutic cloning of embryos 

for stem cell research, Dr. Dooley 

says, as adult stem cells can be 

harvested and used for the same 

purposes without the creation and 

destruction of "new life." While 

proponents say that science needs 

embryonic stem cell research, Dr. 

Dooley and others say that 

alternative research approaches 

for various diseases are available 

and being pursued. He also says 

that the attitude of therapeutic 

cloning proponents that 

embryonic stem cell treatments 

will become a blanket cure for 

countless diseases and illnesses, 

is unfounded since there is no 

scientific proof of this. 

Many opponents favor adult stem 

cell research because the stem 

cells can be harvested from the 

adult who is in need of them. 

These adult stem cells can create 

a wide variety of tissues, and do 

not require destroying embryos. 

But there's one big problem to 

this theory. According to the U.S. 

National Institute for Health, 

adult stem cells are extremely 

rare, and it may be difficult and 

even dangerous to harvest them 

from patients. They also have a 

limited capacity to divide in the 

laboratory, therefore they are 

unable to grow in large enough 

quantities to be of any real value. 

Human embryonic stem cells can 

divide indefinitely, giving them 

greater value. To make things 

even more difficult, adult stem 

cells have to be found for all 

types of tissue, while embryonic 

cells can be used to grow any 

type. 

Opponents are still adamant that 

the ethics of therapeutic cloning 

are immoral, alternatives are 

available, and with funding they 

have the potential to cure the 

same diseases that embryonic 

stem cell research promises to 

cure. For them, the cost of killing 

a potential human life for 

scientific research is too high. 

RISKY BUSINESS 

Money, profit margins, and greed 

are what is driving the scientists 

to pursue human cloning, claims 

Dr. Dooley. He voices the 

concerns of other opponents: 

"...the intentional destruction of 

that [potential human] life in 

order to obtain financial or other 

personal gain poses serious moral 

problems for researchers, donors, 

and our society." 

There are also some who fear 

science-fiction type scenarios, 

like growing an army of clones 

for war, or the selling of "good 

genes" to prospective parents to 

make their future child more 

beautiful, intelligent or athletic. 

While at this point scientifically, 

these fears are unfounded and 

unlikely to occur, these concepts 

compound the idea that human 

cloning will inevitably mean the 

objectification and 

commercialization of human life. 

Many proponents fervently deny 

these accusadons. Bob Lanza, a 

scientist working for ACT, said in 

an interview, "I don't care about 

whether there's commercial value 

in it. You know, the point is that 

if a mother can give her oocyte 

[egg] and cure her kid from a 

lifetime of suffering — if you can 

cure people, you know, screw 

whether it's commercially viable." 

The human cloning industry, it 

seems, is not very profitable at 

all. William Haseltine, chief 

executive officer of Human 

Genome Sciences, a pioneer 

company in regenerative 

medicine, does not view ACT as 

a company with much potential to 

make money: "Private companies 

can't do it [stem cell research] 

justice... Therapies using these 

cells are 10 to 15 years away, and 

most of these companies... can't 

sustain themselves for that long 

without sales." 

There are some companies, 

however, that may well prove to 

be very profitable. One of them is 

Clonaid. For $200,000 you can 

have your DNA, or that of 

another person, stored for future 

cloning. They also claim to be in 

the business, not for the profit, 

but to help infertile couples, 

homosexuals who otherwise 

could not normally have a child 

genetically related to them, or for 

families who have lost loved ones 

and want to bring them back.



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Send in the clones Page 1 of 1 

Canadian Business, March 17, 2003 

Title: Send in the clones: Dr. Peter Singer on why an anti-cloning bill is bad business. 

Source: Canadian Business v76 i5 p88(1) 

Date: March 17, 2003 

Not long after Raelian 

"scientists" claimed to have 

cloned a human baby, Dolly the 

sheep, the world's first cloned 

mammal, died of lung cancer — 

about halfway through her life 

expectancy — sparking yet 

another heated debate about the 

ethics of cloning. For Canada's 

federal government, the timing 

couldn't be more perfect: very 

soon, it's expected to pass Bill 

C-13, strengthening its ban on 

both reproductive and 

therapeutic human cloning — 

the use of cloning technology to 

conduct genetic research and 

treat disease. Ten years in the 

making, Bill C-13 keeps Canada 

in line with the US, which also 

bans reproductive and 

therapeutic cloning. (The US 

goes even further, however, 

restricting funding for stem-cell 

research.) 

Canada is a world leader in 

biotechnology. But laws such as 

Bill C-13, which passed second 

reading in December, could 

erase any edge we had — and 

drive our top scientists to more 

permissive countries like the 

UK and Japan. A group of 

Canadian scientists are trying to 

convince the feds to reconsider 

the bill: on Feb. 24, they 

published a statement in The 

Hill Times urging the 

government to regulate 

therapeutic cloning rather than 

ban it outright. Dr. Peter Singer, 

director of the University of 

Toronto Joint Centre for 

Bioethics, is a member of that 

group, and he talked with 

Canadian Business senior writer 

Andy Holloway about what Bill 

C-13 could mean for our biotech 

industry: 

Canadian Business: Why are 

you opposed to Bill C-13? 

Singer: We're arguing that 

therapeutic cloning ought to be 

treated differently from cloning 

to make a baby. Bill C-13 lumps 

them together, and that's 

inappropriate. It's also not in 

keeping with the views of 

Canadians. Policymakers must 

be careful not to let outrageous, 

unsubstantiated claims drive 

national policy development. 

CB: Why place any restrictions 

on business at all? 

Singer: The question for 

societies is always how to strike 

the right balance between 

reaping the benefits that any 

large technological wave can 

offer and managing the risks. 

Regulation is how we as a 

society say, "This is where we 

draw the line." The real question 

is what leads up to regulation. 

One of the worst things for 

business is uncertainty. Many 

CEOs actually prefer to know 

where the regulatory line is — 

even if it's not where they want 

it to be. 

CB: That line moves from 

country to country. How do we 

level the global playing field? 

Singer: It makes no sense for a 

country to develop a regulatory 

regime without some careful 

thought about what other 

countries are doing. Just as we 

were having conversations 

about regulation in Canada, the 

first xenotransplant 

[transplanting an animal organ 

into a human] was carried out in 

some rural hospital in India, 

where there's a weak regulatory 

environment. That's not to say 

every country has to go to the 

permissive edge, but to not 

understand this global 

phenomenon is a mistake. 

CB: Why should businesses care 

about bioethics? 

Singer: Bioethics and business 

have to find a way to work more 

closely together or it will be bad 

for both. It will be bad for 

bioethics because it will just 

continue in a theoretical vein. It 

will be bad for businesses 

because they won't be active 

participants in discussions 

leading to regulatory matters 

that will affect them. The gap 

between science and ethics is 

large, it's widening, and that is 

what sets the fertile ground for a 

showdown the likes of which 

we saw with genetically 

modified organisms. This is a 

new, more complex world, 

where innovation has a strong 

social and ethical flavor — 

maybe in a way it didn't have 10 

years ago.

The Threat of Biotech Page 1 of 3 

Christianity Today, March 2003 

Title: The threat of biotech: Joni Eareckson Tada responds to Christopher Reeve and others.(Interview) 

Auther: Joni Eareckson Tada 

Source: Christianity Today v47 i3 p60(3) 

Date: March 2003 

HARDLY A WEEK GOES BY 

that people don't ask me, "Have 

you ever talked with 

Christopher Reeve? I saw him 

the other day on television and 

..." People are curious about 

where I stand regarding the 

paralyzed actor's hope for a cure 

through what he calls 

therapeutic cloning. After all, 

I'm disabled. Don't I want a 

cure? I would love to walk. But 

35 years of quadriplegia since a 

diving accident in 1967 has 

honed my perspective. I look at 

the broader implications of 

medical research as a doubleedged 

sword. 

The Christopher Reeve 

Research Foundation 

aggressively promotes research 

using stem cells derived from 

human embryos that are clones 

or frozen discards from fertility 

clinics. But I want people to 

know that not all Americans 

with disabilities believe in using 

human embryos. 

I have served on the National 

Council on Disability for two 

different administrations. I've 

led a national consortium of 80 

disability organizations in my 

role as president of the Christian 

Council on Persons with 

Disabilities. I've interacted with 

thousands of disabled 

individuals who strongly believe 

that life is sacred even in this 

brave new world of biotech 

research, where humans and 

their genes may be cloned, 

copied, and altered. In the 

course of my ministry, I'm 

asked many probing questions 

about cloning and stem-cell 

research. Here are some of my 

responses, which contrast 

strongly with the views of 

Christopher Reeve. 

You reject using embryonic stem 

cells for research, and 

champion the use of adult stem 

cells. Why? 

[Graphic omitted]Most 

Americans, out of a mixed sense 

of sympathy and awe, look at 

people in wheelchairs and think: 

Who would want to deny them a 

cure? No one better understands 

the desire for a cure than I do, as 

a quadriplegic who has lived in 

a wheelchair for decades. But 

even Christopher Reeve's 

chances for a cure are more 

realistic using adult stem-cell 

therapies. 

For every study he may cite, I 

can point to scores of success 

stories using adult stem-cell 

therapies: At the Washington 

Medical Center in Seattle, 

physicians successfully treated 

26 rapidly deteriorating multiple 

sclerosis patients with each 

patient's own bone marrow stem 

cells. Of the 26, 6 improved and 

20 stabilized. 

Here's another example. A Los 

Angeles neurosurgeon harvested 

stem cells from the brain of a 

Parkinson's patient. The doctor 

cultured the cells and a small 

percentage of those cells 

matured into dopaminesecreting 

neurons. He injected 

six million cultured cells back 

into his patient's brain. One year 

later, the patient's symptoms 

were down by 83 percent. It's a 

phenomenal success story, but 

few in the news media picked 

up on this breakthrough. 

But in the long run, isn't 

embryonic stem-cell research 

more promising? 

The question should not be 

which is more promising. 

Instead, what is right and good 

for our future? Researchers still 

make conflicting discoveries. 

Stanford University Medical 

Center said that stem cells taken 

from adult bone marrow do not 

have the ability to evolve as do 

those from human embryos. But 

the Stem Cell Institute at the 

University of Minnesota found 

another variety of bone-marrow 

stem cells that may develop into 

almost any type of cellular 

tissue in the body. This finding 

means a physician could use a 

patient's own cells in therapy, to 

lower the dangers of immune 

rejection or tumors. This 

practice promises to be more 

cost-effective, safer, and more 

ethical. 

So why do we mostly hear about 

research that uses cloned 

embryonic stem cells? 

The need to find innovative 

therapies that have a potential 

for profit fuels the biotech 

research engine. Cutting-edge 

therapies attract scarce research 

dollars. That means tough 

ethical questions take a back 

seat. The result is a flurry of 

reports about embryos holding 

the key to future cures. In 

reality, no researcher has tested 

a therapy using stem cells from 

a human embryo in a human 

patient. It's just too risky. Even



testing in animals has been 

fraught with problems. Yes, 

we've all seen the video of the 

paralyzed mouse that moved its 

hind legs after stem-cell 

therapy. But that mouse 

developed tumors. Embryonic 

cells grow, grow, and grow. 

Their genetic blueprint requires 

it. 

Stem-cell researchers haven't 

even developed what's called a 

"proof of concept" to take the 

experiment to the next step of 

using a human. It's too 

dangerous because of the 

massive tumors that keep 

developing. 

Why not support both adult and 

embryonic stem-cell research? 

Speaking recently at a Senate 

hearing, paraplegic James Kelly 

put it succinctly: "Huge 

obstacles stand in the way of 

cloned embryonic stem cells 

leading to cures for any 

condition. To overcome these 

obstacles, crucial funds, 

resources, and research careers 

will need to be diverted for 

many years to come. These 

obstacles include tumor 

formation, short and long-term 

genetic mutations, tissue 

rejection, prohibitive costs, and 

the need for eggs from literally 

tens of millions of women to 

treat a single major condition, 

such as stroke, heart disease, or 

diabetes. Every condition that 

cloned embryos someday may 

address is already being 

addressed more safely, 

effectively, and cheaply by adult 

stem cells." 

In addition, research should not 

benefit James Kelly or me or 

any other person with a 

disability at the expense of other 

human life. My husband and I 

support spinal-cord-injury 

research, but not to the degree 

that the benefits of any potential 

cure outweigh serious moral 

questions, effects on society, 

and whether it is an affront to 

God. 

Why do you want to make 

therapeutic cloning of human 

embryos illegal? 

First, let's call it what it is: 

Research cloning. In research 

cloning, scientists clone human 

beings and destroy them for 

study and testing. There's no 

therapy, certainly not for the 

clone. This research is about 

scientists creating a class of 

humanity solely for 

experimentation, to extract cells 

from them. That's why it should 

be illegal. We must not give 

legal protection to anyone who 

would create human beings 

merely to exploit them. 

Shouldn't we care more about 

living people than embryos? 

If we violate a human embryo 

today, tomorrow we will 

become callous about the fetus, 

then the infant, and then people 

with physical defects. A society 

that honors life will safeguard 

the rights of the disadvantaged, 

the weak, and the small. 

But the weak are in mortal 

danger if a society allows 

scientists to create a class of 

human beings (as in cloning for 

research) in order to kill them 

and use their cellular tissue. A 

world in which the biotech 

industry sets the moral agenda is 

a threat to me as an adult and a 

quadriplegic. 

Biotech advocates believe that a 

human embryo is just tissue, not 

a person. How can you convince 

them otherwise? 

It doesn't matter whether you 

believe, as I do, that a soul 

dwells within a tiny human 

embryo. That embryo is not a 

goat, rat, or chicken embryo. It's 

human. Each of us began our 

journey on this planet as a living 

human embryo. We owe to 

embryonic human life the 

protection that any human life 

enjoys. 

Why should your moral agenda 

interfere with the promise of 

new cures for the disabled 

through scientific research? 

I find it shameful that some of 

my associates with disabilities 

use their physical impairment as 

a plea to promote research 

cloning. I'm offended that 

people employ words like 

"helpless victim" and "being 

trapped in a useless body" to 

sway the sympathies of 

legislators. 

Rather, let's influence society 

with reasoned judgment, 

strength of character, and a 

commitment to improve our 

culture, not diminish it. 

I would rather that credible 

bioethicists, not drug 

companies, set the moral 

agenda. All pursuit of medical 

advancements, all law and 

public policy, reflects 

somebody's morals. When it 

comes to hot competition for 

research dollars, we are wiser 

when we err on the side of 

caution. The fools who rush in 

to embryo research clumsily 

grapple with the essence of 

human genesis.



California already allows 

funding for embryonic stem-cell 

research. Isn't this fighting a 

losing battle? 

A governor's signature on a bill 

doesn't mean the battle's over. 

The struggle with academic and 

corporate special interests is just 

beginning. God made us in his 

image. Embryo cloning for 

research is an attack on God's 

creative authority. This research 

surfaces many other unresolved 

questions. What limitations are 

there on the morally abhorrent 

practice of filing a patent on 

human genes? Is there any 

protection for the privacy of an 

individual's genetic 

information? If human embryos 

have no legal protection, what 

would stop a researcher from 

manipulating the genes of a 

human embryo to enhance the 

intelligence or physical 

characteristics of a child? 

Still, isn't technology our hope 

for the future in so many areas? 

Technological knowledge is a 

double-edged sword. Technical 

advancements for good include 

the potential for evil abuses, 

whether it's splitting atoms or 

manipulating genes. 

Scientific knowledge continues 

to grow rapidly. We need 

pioneers in ethics to keep pace 

with researchers, leading to 

prudent decision-making. After 

all, when we deal with the 

building blocks of human 

genesis, we are touching the 

apple of God's eye. 

Joni Eareckson Tada is founder and president of Joni and Friends, a Christian ministry addressing the needs of 

people with disabilities. For more information, visit joniandfriends.org and stemcellresearch.org

This embryonic cloning is worth pursuing. Page 1 of 1 

Globe & Mail (Toronto, Canada), November 27, 2001 

Title: This embryonic cloning is worth pursuing. 

Source: Globe & Mail (Toronto, Canada) 

Date: Nov. 27, 2001 

Advanced Cell Technology Inc. 

announced on Sunday that it had 

cloned a human embryo. It was 

a conditional success — the 

embryo could not divide beyond 

six cells — but the news caught 

everyone's attention. The 

Massachusetts research firm had 

publicly started down a road 

that may one day lead to 

medical breakthroughs — or, a 

darker prospect, to attempts to 

clone a human being. 

Consider the medical case first. 

The researchers removed the 

genetic material from a woman's 

egg, and replaced that nucleus 

with a few adult cells from a 

woman's ovaries. The embryo 

that developed from that egg 

contained the same DNA as the 

donor of the new nucleus. 

If the embryo had reached the 

stage of a blastocyst, dividing 

into 150 cells or so, scientists 

could theoretically have 

extracted stem cells from it. 

That extraction would have 

killed the embryo, but the stem 

cells — the building blocks of 

the body, capable of turning into 

flesh, bone, muscle and other 

dedicated cells — could 

theoretically have been used to 

treat such diseases as diabetes, 

cancer, Alzheimer's and 

Parkinson's. The DNA match 

would have reduced the chance 

that the body might reject this 

new, restorative tissue. 

We emphasize the word 

theoretical; science is not there 

yet. But this is the great promise 

of human therapeutic cloning. 

The research was denounced on 

Sunday by the White House, the 

Vatican and many others. U.S. 

President George W. Bush 

called on the Senate to pass a 

law already approved by the 

House of Representatives, 

which would make the research 

illegal. 

In Canada, the Commons health 

committee will advise the 

Health Minister by the end of 

January on whether it should be 

illegal to create human embryos 

solely for research. 

The moral argument against 

such research is that it is wrong 

to create even a few hundred 

cells of potential human life in 

order to kill them for their stem 

cells; human life is precious, 

even in that unformed state. The 

practical argument is that other 

sources of stem cells exist: 

aborted fetuses, the umbilical 

cord, embryos created (but not 

used) for in vitro fertilization, 

and the bone marrow of adults. 

The slippery-slope argument is 

that science won't stop at 

therapeutic research; someone 

will try to clone a human being 

by bringing to term a baby 

whose DNA is that of whoever 

donated cells for the new 

nucleus. 

The slippery-slope argument is 

the easiest to answer. Human 

reproductive cloning should be 

outlawed. As the 1997 Scottish 

cloning of Dolly the sheep 

showed, many horrendous 

misfires would precede a 

successful, healthy birth. Make 

it illegal for anyone to keep a 

cloned human embryo alive 

beyond 14 days. According to 

the 1993 report of Canada's 

Royal Commission on 

Reproductive Technologies, 

survival beyond 14 days marks 

"the development of the 

primitive streak, which fixes the 

individual identity of the 

embryo and forms the basis for 

its nervous system." Until then, 

it has no consciousness and 

feels no pain. 

Up to 14 days, however, there is 

more of a fight between those 

who would ban human 

therapeutic cloning and those 

who would permit it. Yes, there 

are other sources of stem cells, 

but most are of little use to an ill 

person who needs tissue his 

body won't reject. (If he has 

kept his umbilical cord, he is 

fortunate.) The big exception 

may be the harvesting of adult 

stem cells from the patient's 

body; but the jury is out on how 

useful they are. 

We have argued, and argue still, 

that if the collection of cells up 

to 14 days hasthe potential to 

unlock treatments to end human 

pain and suffering, it is 

unreasonable, even immoral, not 

to allow the embryonic research 

to continue. The small step 

taken by Advanced Cell 

Technology is no horror story.

Ban cloning. Do you copy? Page 1 of 2 

Globe & Mail (Toronto, Canada), July 3, 2002 

Title: Ban cloning. Do you copy? A proposed law on reproductive technology is right to criminally ban 

human cloning, say medical ethicists Francoise Batlis and Jocelyn Downie. 

Authors: Francoise Baylis and Jocelyn Downie 

Source: Globe & Mail (Toronto, Canada), p1 

Date: July 3, 2002 

Early critics of the government's 

proposed legislation on assisted 

human reproduction have 

objected to the criminal ban on 

human cloning. They believe 

that cloning for research 

purposes should not be 

prohibited, and they particularly 

object to using the criminal law 

as the mechanism for the 

prohibition. Some media have 

endorsed these objections — too 

bad, because they're misguided 

and exaggerate the medical and 

economic benefits of human 

cloning. 

The Assisted Human 

Reproduction Act introduced in 

Parliament on May 9 includes a 

number of prohibitions. First on 

this list is a prohibition against 

knowingly creating a human 

clone or transplanting a human 

clone into a human being. 

Anyone so doing could be fined 

as much as $500,000, or 

imprisoned for as many as 10 

years, or both. 

Several different technologies 

can be used to make a human 

clone, including embryo 

splitting, parthenogenesis and 

nuclear transfer technology. For 

now, attention is focused on 

nuclear transplantation: With 

this technology, scientists take 

any cell from the body other 

than the egg and sperm and 

remove its nucleus. The nucleus 

contains the bulk of the DNA 

that makes each of us 

genetically unique. This nucleus 

is then used to replace the 

nucleus of an unfertilized egg, 

which is activated to develop 

into an embryo that will have 

the same DNA as the person 

who donated the original body 

cell. If this embryo is used for 

stem-cell research, it will be 

dissected and used to create an 

embryonic stem-cell line. Stemcell 

research has the potential to 

transform the treatment of 

Alzheimer's and Parkinson's 

disease, heart disease, muscular 

dystrophy, stroke and diabetes. 

However, what the public needs 

to understand is that stem-cell 

research and cloning research 

are separate. It's possible to 

support stem-cell research using 

"spare" embryos created by in 

vitro fertilization without, at the 

same time, supporting the 

creation of research embryos 

using cloning technology. 

So why the fuss about human 

cloning? Stem-cell scientists 

want to use cloned embryos 

instead of IVF embryos because 

if the transplanted stem cells 

have the same DNA as the 

patient, they hope it may be 

possible to prevent potential 

immune rejection. 

However, there may not be any 

immune rejection problem with 

transplanted IVF embryonic 

stem cells. Besides, we're still 

years away from clinical trials 

of stem-cell therapies involving 

humans. Canadian scientists 

first have to learn how to 

develop and expand embryonic 

stem-cell lines; years of study in 

testing potential stem-cell 

therapies in animals will follow 

before research involving 

humans is contemplated. At that 

point, the potential immunity 

benefits of deriving human stem 

cells from cloned embryos may 

become relevant. Until then, 

these potential benefits are not 

relevant, because the cells aren't 

being transplanted into humans. 

Creating cloned human embryos 

for research is a step of 

enormous moral consequence. 

It's still not clear that it's a 

necessary step. So why take it? 

For now, cloning human 

embryos should be prohibited. 

Even those proponents of 

unrestricted research who accept 

the prohibition object to the 

proposed mechanism: criminal 

law. They say it's too inflexible 

to deal with a scientifically and 

socially dynamic issue. But with 

political will, legislation can be 

changed in as little as 24 days; 

surely this isn't too much time to 

reflect on a step as serious as 

changing the legal status of 

human cloning. 

Those who object to the 

criminal ban on cloning argue 

that we need a regulatory 

scheme that encourages public 

discussion about the potential 

harms and benefits of human 

cloning. However, law 

encourages public deliberation 

more than regulation does, 

because regulations aren't 

debated in the House, and 

therefore don't come to media 

attention and public scrutiny. 

Finally, critics of the proposed 

legislation suggest that criminal 

law is too "severe" a tool. To 

that objection, we say: If 

Canadians think prohibiting 

human cloning is a serious

Ban cloning. Do you copy? Page 2 of 2 

Globe & Mail (Toronto, Canada), July 3, 2002 

matter, then a severe response is 

appropriate. 

Ottawa has promised to review 

the assisted-human-reproduction 

legislation within three years. In 

Canada we are certainly more 

than three years away from 

clinical trials involving humans 

and any possible need for 

creating cloned embryos to get 

stem cells for transplants. Let's 

not be fooled into rushing 

ahead. As a warning to those 

who continue to chant the 

mantra that legislation and 

excessive regulation could 

hamper research of considerable 

medical and economic value, 

let's recall the words of the late 

philosopher Hans Jonas: "Too 

ruthless a pursuit of science 

would make its most dazzling 

pursuit not worth having." 

Francoise Baylis is professor of bioethics and philosophy at Dalhousie University. Jocelyn Downie is Canada 

Research Chair in Health Law and Policy and director of Dalhousie's Health Law Institute.

Ban cloning, not its life-saving cousin. Page 1 of 2 

Humanist in Canada, Autumn 2002 

Title: Ban cloning, not its life-saving cousin. 

Author: Abdallah Daar 

Source: Humanist in Canada, i1423 p30-1 

Date: Autumn 2002 

Today [May 9, 2002], the 

Canadian government is 

expected to introduce legislation 

on new reproductive 

technologies. It will probably 

permit stem-cell research under 

regulated conditions, and 

criminally ban cloning. It may 

also cover a related technology, 

nuclear transfer, which in our 

opinion, deserves regulation, but 

not the criminal ban it, too, will 

likely attract. 

Nuclear transfer involves 

putting the genetic material of a 

mature body cell (e.g., a skin 

cell) into an egg cell whose 

genetic material has been 

removed. This newly created 

cell then starts to divide. When 

it reaches about 100 cells, 

special cells, called stem cells, 

can be removed. These cells 

could theoretically be made into 

any type of cell or tissue and 

implanted into the same person 

who donated the original adult 

cell. His immune system won't 

reject them, because they're 

genetically identical. Such cells 

can greatly help in treating 

patients with various diseases, 

or even possibly help regenerate 

damaged organs of people with 

liver or kidney failure. We urge 

the government not to 

criminalize nuclear transfer, but 

to tightly regulate it. 

Nuclear transfer is controversial: 

Some believe full human life 

begins at the moment any cell 

fuses with an egg that then starts 

to divide, and that therefore 

nuclear transfer constitutes the 

destruction of human life. Others 

believe this is not so. 

This controversy is the reason 

why the technology should be 

regulated. Ideally, the regulatory 

scheme should recognize and 

respect this sharp diversity in 

views and take into account 

scientific developments. 

But the technology should not 

be banned. Criminal law is the 

state's most severe regulatory 

tool. Federal law commissions 

and the Supreme Court of 

Canada agree that it should be 

used sparingly. Criminal law 

does not have the flexibility 

necessary to address this 

scientifically and socially 

dynamic area. Criminal 

prohibitions should be reserved 

for areas where there is a high 

degree of social consensus — 

and there's little evidence of that 

here: A 

PricewaterhouseCoopers poll 

found that more than 75 per cent 

of Canadians approved of 

cloning human tissue for 

medical purposes. 

Because it's unlikely that social 

consensus will be easily 

achieved in this controversial 

area, we need a regulatory 

scheme that encourages and 

facilitates continuing public 

deliberations about nuclear 

transfer and other reproductive 

technologies. Banning the 

technology will further polarize 

the debate and effectively shut 

down constructive dialogue. 

It's possible to regulate 

controversial technologies such 

as nuclear transfer without using 

criminal bans. The U.K. Human 

Fertilization and Embryology 

Authority is a working model of 

a regulatory body, one with a 

long and honourable history. Its 

membership is transparently 

selected and appointed; it has 

made responsible judgments 

over the years; it has had public 

support. France is adopting this 

model. 

The Canadian Institutes of 

Health Research have produced 

guidelines that provide a good 

foundation for a regulatory 

scheme in Canada. They don't 

currently permit funding of 

research involving nuclear 

transfer — but numerous 

scientific groups favour doing 

so, such as the U.S. National 

Academy of Sciences, the 

American Association for the 

Advancement of Science and 

the U.K. Royal Society. 

California's Advisory 

Committee on Human Cloning 

and the Canadian Bar 

Association have recommended 

regulating the technology rather 

than banning it. 

Even the conservative U.S. 

Senator, Orrin Hatch, recently 

announced support for a 

bipartisan U.S. bill that would 

permit nuclear transfer. "I come 

to this issue with a strong prolife, 

pro-family record," he said. 

"But I also strongly believe that 

a critical part of being pro-life is 

to support measures that help 

the living.... To ban human 

somatic-cell nuclear-transfer 

research would be a tragic 

mistake." 

If nuclear transfer proves to be 

the way forward for 

`regenerative medicine,' then a 

Canada that has banned it will

Ban cloning, not its life-saving cousin. Page 2 of 2 

Humanist in Canada, Autumn 2002 

be at a disadvantage. By 

establishing a progressive 

regulatory climate in Canada, 

the best scientific minds will be 

drawn here. This, in the long 

run, is good for the health of 

Canadians, and for economic 

growth. That's not to say that 

economics should determine a 

morally complex issue — on the 

contrary, the social and ethical 

issues should take precedence 

— but at some stage, potential 

economic benefit is a 

consideration. 

A key counter-argument to 

nuclear transfer is that it will 

result in commodification of 

women and reproductive 

material. This is a legitimate 

concern, but it doesn't justify a 

criminal ban. We can ban the 

buying and selling of human 

eggs without banning nuclear 

transfer, just as we ban the 

buying and selling of kidneys 

but not kidney transplantation. 

Canadian society is entering an 

era when we must deal with 

increasingly complex and 

controversial scientific and 

ethical issues. Criminalizing 

nuclear transfer would set a 

terrible precedent.

Human Cloning - Saskatchewan Elocution and Debate Association

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