Related Why Files stories Scottish sheep shocker! Cloning update Embryonic stem cells		Human reproductive cloning -- nightmare or nostrum? When the question turns to the idea of cloning entire new humans, most experts who spoke to The Why Files were highly skeptical. Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, says the problem has traditionally been framed in terms of the right to reproduce. Americans, he says, assume they "should be free to do what they want." When the argument is framed in those terms, Caplan observes, "kids always lose." Instead, he contends that the real issue is the child. "Society has an interest in deciding, is it really in the interests of another person?"
				Update 1 MAY 1998. On April 28, The New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, an influential advisory panel to the New York State Health Department, urged a dramatic tightening of the out-dated rules that govern new fertility technologies. In a set of recommendations that could also affect human cloning, the panel attempted to clarify who gets parental rights when eggs and/or sperm are donated. It also urged more concern for the multiple births that emerge from one in every three births relying on assisted-fertility. See "Health Panel Seeks Sweeping Changes in Fertility Therapy," The New York Times, 29 April, 1998, p. A1.

		. Further objections Even if cloning could be done safely, Caplan, speaking at the 1998 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says the child's welfare raises two further objections to cloning. First is the foreknowledge trap: A clone could expect to suffer many of the same diseases as the DNA donor, making it "the greatest genetic test ever foisted on a person," Caplan says. Such knowledge would raise the specter of employment or health-insurance discrimination. And it could impart a heavy psychological burden of knowing too much about the future. Would we really want to know we'd get a genetically determined cancer at age 55 or Alzheimer's disease at age 72? Even worse are what Caplan calls the "wacko" social relations human reproductive cloning would cause:
			Would the clone have any genetic relation to the woman who carried it to term?
			Who would be the parents of a clone? Since a clone is genetically identical to the cell donor, its biological parents are actually the donor's parents. So its grandparents would be its parents. According to Lori Andrews of the Chicago-Kent School of Law, the donor egg, donor chromosomes, and mother carrying the child to term could arise in 13 combinations. Even in the simplest combination, with the intended mother supplying all three components, four people could claim to be the parent: the intended mother -- or her mother or father, or the intended father. And from there, the possibilities become dizzying. In one case, 10 people could claim rights as parents!
			Would the parent's relationship with a genetically identical child be that of parent and child, or of identical twins?
			If one member of a couple were cloned, could a parent become romantically involved with the clone? "If I'm in love with my wife," Caplan observes, "how would I control my feelings toward the woman I loved 25 years ago" if her clone was maturing in the family?
		For these and other reasons, reproductive cloning would be "an insult to the relationships of the family," according to Ronald Cole-Turner, a United Church of Christ minister at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. In general, he adds, opinions among the Christian churches that have formally considered reproductive human cloning ranged from "no, not ever," to "no, not now and maybe not ever." Making spare parts If reproductive cloning carries grave concerns, should cloning be used to produce body parts (much as we suggested about stem cells)? Briefly, the idea is to take an adult cell with the right genes and transfer its chromosomes into a human egg whose genetic material had been removed. Then the embryo would be grown until it started making cells programmed to form the desired adult cells. These so-called "differentiated" cells would then be grafted into the diseased person. For example, the technique could theoretically make brain cells to replace those destroyed in Parkinson's or Alzheimer's patients. The Catholic and United Methodist churches both abhor any "waste" of human embryos, says Cole-Turner, and thus oppose this research. But he adds, "Most religions have ignored the non-reproductive uses of cloning." To many people, non-reproductive cloning sets off fewer ethical alarms than reproductive cloning since the embryos would not develop into what they consider a human being. "It may be deeply offensive to some people, but I'd consider it in some cases," says Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute, Dolly's co-creator. As the recent debate over the U.S. Senate bill to ban all human cloning made clear, cloning could have real human benefits, and many scientists rankle at the idea of an outright ban. For those who favor research, but dread the idea of making carbon copies of Bill Gates or Pol Pot, the challenge is to craft regulations that actually do what we want. And that, says Caplan, is not the most likely outcome of Dolly's dilemma. "Cloning is just one kind of reproductive technology which has been used in a free market without regulation, control, or societal steering," he says. "It's a kind of Wild West, where anyone who has the money can use it -- single people, couples, even fertile women." Based on the record, he says, "I wouldn't be optimistic that this country will be able to do a good job regulating any form of reproductive technology."
		. --David Tenenbaum

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