COMMENTARY:
Stop All Cloning of Humans For Four Years
by
Leon R. Kass, Chairman
President's Council on Bioethics
July
11, 2002 (WSJ) – For the past
five years, the prospect of human cloning has been the subject of much public
attention and sharp moral debate. Several mammalian species have been cloned;
the first cloned human embryos have been created; and fertility specialists at
home and abroad have announced their intention to clone the first human
child.
For
the past six months, the President's Council on Bioethics has met to consider
the moral, biomedical, and human significance of human cloning and to advise
President Bush on what to do about it. We have sought to examine the subject in
full by considering the human goods that cloning might serve or endanger -- not
just whether the technique is feasible or safe -- and by considering cloning's
place in our expanding biotechnical powers over human life. And we have
considered various public policy options that might give effect to our ethical
judgments and provide a prudent course of action, permitting science to
flourish while preserving moral boundaries.
* * *
Our
first goal was to clarify the terminology that confounds public discussion, beginning
with "human cloning" itself. Whatever the purpose for which cloning
is undertaken, the act that produces the genetic "replica" is the
first step, the creation of an embryonic clone.
Accordingly,
we mean by human cloning the production of cloned human embryos -- the earliest
stages of developing human life -- with the intention of either transferring
them to a uterus to initiate pregnancy or taking them apart in order to procure
embryonic stem cells. The first use has come to be called "reproductive
cloning," or just "cloning"; the second has come to be called
"therapeutic cloning," "research cloning" or "nuclear
transfer for stem cell research."
The
council has chosen, instead, to call them
"cloning-to-produce-children" and "cloning-for-biomedical-research."
These terms are accurate and allow us to debate the moral arguments without
Orwellian or euphemistic distortion. Whether we favor or oppose cloning to
produce children, or for biomedical research, we must acknowledge that both
uses of cloning begin with the same act: the production of cloned human
embryos.
Regarding
cloning-to-produce-children, the nation, Congress and our council are nearly
unanimous: This practice should be opposed, morally and legally. Not only is
the technique demonstrably unsafe, it could never be safely attempted.
Moreover, the council opposes this practice not only because it is unsafe, but
because it would imperil the freedom and dignity of the cloned child, the
cloning parents, and the entire society.
By
enabling parents for the first time to predetermine the entire genetic make-up
of their children, it would move procreation toward a form of manufacture. It
would confound family relations and personal identity; it would create new
stresses between parents and offspring. And it might open the door to a new
eugenics, where parents or society could replicate the genomes of individuals
(including themselves) whom they deem to be superior.
Regarding
cloning-for-biomedical-research, the council, like the nation, is divided. On
the one hand, this research offers the prospect -- though speculative at the
moment -- of gaining valuable knowledge and treatments for many diseases. On
the other, it requires the exploitation and destruction of nascent human life,
and risks coarsening our moral sensibilities. Although individual council
members weigh these concerns differently, we all agree that each side in this
debate is defending something vital to us all: the goodness of knowledge and
healing, the goodness of human life at all its stages. And each side must face
up to the moral burdens of approving or disapproving of this research: namely,
that some who might be healed in the future might not be, or that we will
become a society that creates and uses some lives in the service of
others.
In
our report released today -- "Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical
Inquiry" -- we offer two alternative policy recommendations, both distinct
from the most prominent legislative proposals in Congress. Both recommendations
call for a permanent ban on cloning-to-produce-children, thus giving public
force to the nation's strong ethical verdict against this practice. Where we
differ is on how to approach cloning-for-biomedical-research. A minority of the
council recommends that we proceed now with such potentially crucial research,
but only with significant regulations in place, including federal licensing,
oversight and strict limits on how long cloned embryos may be allowed to
develop.
A
majority of the council, myself included, recommends that no human cloning of
any kind be permitted at this time. We propose that Congress enact a four-year
federal moratorium on all human cloning, including
cloning-for-biomedical-research, beginning with the production of cloned human
embryos.
* * *
The
moratorium would provide time to debate whether we should cross a crucial moral
boundary: creating cloned human life solely as a resource for research. This
policy would allow time for other areas of stem cell research, both adult and
embryonic, to proceed. It would allow those who believe that
cloning-for-biomedical-research can never ethically be pursued to make their
case, and those who believe it can to convince the nation that this is true by designing
a responsible system of public oversight. A national moratorium would also
allow us to debate the question of research on cloned embryos in the larger
context of all embryo research, as well as future possibilities of genetically
engineering human life. Pending such debate, no law should now be enacted that
approves or authorizes any human cloning.
The
intense attention and political zeal surrounding human cloning testify to the
importance of our decision. Cloning touches many of the most fundamental
aspects of our humanity and our competing ideas of the good life, and is a
harbinger of even more daunting biotechnologies. We hope our report will serve
to clarify and guide the nation's decisions on these questions, and to shed
light on a debate of great consequence.