Cloning's Apologist

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Cloning’s Apologist Caitrin Nicol

en years have passed since at school?” Wilmut asks. Would this the birth of Dolly the sheep, “‘mini-me’...find it hard to recreate” Tthe first mammal cloned Wilmut’s career trajectory? from an adult, on July 5, 1996. The Wilmut painstakingly describes the announcement seven months later profound technical challenges of cre- of Dolly’s creation set off a fire- ating Dolly, explaining the process storm of controversy and propelled of trial and error and breakthrough, British embryologist Ian Wilmut to and telling how the daily tedium the international spotlight. Now, in of the research would occasionally a new book written in collaboration be broken by minor moments of with Daily Telegraph science editor drama—like the use of tiny charges Roger Highfield, Wilmut sets out of electricity to kick off the fusion of to explore the science and ethics of the adult cell nucleus (with its DNA) cloning humans. and the enucleated egg. Wilmut, who The first two-thirds of After Dolly has recently been criticized for tak- comprise an inter- ing too much credit esting retelling of After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of for the creation of the history of clon- Human Cloning Dolly, bends over ing research. It By Ian Wilmut and Roger Highfield backward to spread includes a biography Norton ~ 2006 ~ 324 pp. the glory, praising $24.95 (cloth) of Dolly, a detailed his many colleagues explanation of the and admitting that cloning process, some discussion of he did not “deserve to take so much genetic engineering and “pharming,” credit for an effort that had depended and myriad complaints about media on the hard work of so many others.” over-attention (for which the rem- The excitement of Dolly’s birth is edy, apparently, is the publication of portrayed from the perspective of one of these others: Karen Mycock, a provocative book). Wilmut also the scientist who had electrically offers an autobiographical sketch, fused the donor cell and enucleated using the bizarre gimmick of tell- egg, away at a wedding the day Dolly ing his own story in contrast to the was born. life of his imaginary clone. “Would my clone be lucky, like me, and fall When Karen returned to her into the arms of the love of his life room in the Craigendarroch Hotel

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to change her hat, she found a ing its human identity. After a brief fax from Angela that read, “She’s explanation of the phases of human been born and she has a white development, he concludes that it is face and furry legs.” the “property of self-consciousness, “Heaven only knows what the the ability to reflect and to reason” receptionist thought as she slid that “makes humans special.” “The the fax under our room door,” she central reason that I don’t regard a later recalled. Angela’s message blastocyst as a person is that it has no meant that the lamb was differ- mental life.” ent from her Blackface surrogate This theory of personhood is hardly mother. They could rule out any original, and it is no more compel- thoughts of a mix-up. They had ling simply because it is asserted by a clone of an adult cell. Although a prominent scientist like Wilmut. Dolly had no name at that point, The moral worth of human beings, Karen knew that the lamb would including whether they are wor- make headlines. “I tripped the thy of protection against deliberate light fantastic. I thought hurrah harm, should not depend on their and was absolutely ecstatic.” manifest abilities and powers but on At the ceilidh in the village hall the dignity that comes simply with that night, Karen bought drinks being human. The key question is for everyone. “I’m a dad,” she not what an embryo can or cannot do shouted. “I think the locals will but what kind of a being it is. Unlike remember the ‘mad scientist’ who an indeterminate “clump of cells,” it claimed to be a sheep’s father and is a complete organism with a unique then sunk more than one tequila human genetic identity, developing slammer and proceeded to dance by a self-regulated process with the the night away.” intrinsic capacity to bring itself to the next stage of maturity. It is he main substance of the book undeniably living, and cannot accu- Tappears in the last third, in which rately be called anything other than Wilmut argues against the creation human. of cloned babies but for the creation Wilmut’s reasoning, howev- and destruction of cloned embryos to er, seems more calculated to jus- produce tailor-made pluripotent stem tify a certain kind of research than a cells. While conceding that “I am no thoughtful deduction from the facts moral philosopher,” Wilmut recog- of nature. Because the first streak nizes the centrality of the question of neurological tissue that typical- of the moral status of the embryo, ly appears around fourteen days is and he proposes to set to rest the not capable of reflective reasoning, “concerns of the layperson” regard- Wilmut accords the early embryo an

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“intermediate developing status” as theory, Wilmut is content to set this the “critical milestones of a human critical question aside. He says that life” begin to manifest themselves “we should be realistic about whether more clearly. But to haggle over the it will ever be possible to reduce markers of humanity is to suggest complex ethical and moral issues to that respect for human dignity is pure logic.” He is willing to grant conditional on those markers, as he the embryo a “special respect,” but he uneasily senses when discussing the seems uncomfortable with even that standards of a more radical ethicist: concession: “Regarding my respect for the early embryo, John Harris has John Harris would argue that a “person” is a creature capable of remarked, ‘Is that like saying that I valuing its own existence....Over respect the pig in the bacon sandwich a lifetime an individual will grad- and am doing my best to find some- ually move from being a poten- thing I like to eat as much as bacon tial person or a preperson into an sandwiches?’” actual person when she becomes Such strangely-chosen analogies capable of valuing her own exis- are everywhere, and are emblem- tence. “And if, eventually, she per- atic of the book’s peculiar failure manently loses this capacity prior to address seriously the questions to death, she will have ceased to it poses itself. Repeatedly shuffling be a person.” the burden of moral clarity onto his This is all very logical and coher- “faith in the majority of people to ent, but I suspect most people know right from wrong,” Wilmut would regard an elderly relative turns to a tired hypothetical: who had lost his mind to Alzheim- er’s as a person. For many the I want you to take stock of what same would go for individuals you think about the moral sta- who are “brain-dead,” anenceph- tus of the early embryo. Imag- alic infants, or individuals in a ine how you would behave in the persistent vegetative state. And following scenario. You are vis- by the same token I would have iting an IVF laboratory with a an equally conservative view of young child. A laboratory assis- personhood at the start of human tant brings in a petri dish, car- life. Where, precisely, I cannot say. rying it with great care so as not Except that the clutch of one or to spill the contents. The child two hundred cells that makes up a is fascinated to see twelve early blastocyst is not a person. embryos in the dish, each consist- ing of eight cells, under the gaze Discovering that he has wandered of a microscope. Two embryos into murky territory, and trying to are to be transferred to a patient, remain less morally radical than his and the other ten are to be fro-

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zen and stored in a Dewar flask prefer rousing rhetoric to precise for possible later use. Suddenly, facts. He decries the “religious para- before anything can happen, the noia slowing the quest for treat- fire alarm goes off. Smoke is bil- ments,” castigating the “pressures lowing in from the corridor, and on the American scientific commu- you have moments to squeeze nity from the Christian Right” and through a small window before lamenting that “in the United States, the lab fills with fumes. What under President George W. Bush, would you do? Carry the child or federal funding was withdrawn from the culture dish containing the studies with human embryos because twelve embryos? of opposition from the Christian This morally muddled thought- Right.” This is flatly false. In reality, experiment deserves to be put to rest the Bush administration was the first once and for all. The question facing to provide federal money for embry- us in the embryo research debate is onic stem cell research, limiting such not whether to save children or save funding to existing stem cell lines embryos in an emergency; it is wheth- so as not to create a public incen- er we should actively destroy embryos tive for the ongoing destruction of for research purposes. Choosing to additional embryos. Wilmut dispar- save one’s friend rather than a strang- ages pro-life interest in adult stem er in a fire would not make it accept- cell research, citing a colleague at able to kill strangers in order to save Edinburgh University who believes our friends. The critical debate about that the promise of creating pluripo- embryo research is not whether the tent stem cells from adult tissue has embryo, so small that its humanness been exaggerated by “overenthusi- is hidden to the naked eye, deserves astic researchers in countries where to be treated exactly the same in human embryonic stem cell research every way as an obviously human is severely limited.” In point of fact, child or adult; the critical question is in the United States, no form of whether that embryo deserves simply embryonic stem cell research, includ- the bare minimum protection due ing research cloning, is federally pro- a human being—protection against hibited or even regulated—unlike in France, Germany, Canada, and many being intentionally harmed. Wilmut, other nations that have set legal for all his talk of “special respect,” limits on embryo destruction, includ- says no. ing a prohibition on the creation hen he takes up both the ther- and destruction of cloned embryos Wapeutic possibilities of stem for any purpose. By contrast, only cells and the public debate about twelve states in the U.S. prohibit embryo research, Wilmut seems to cloning to produce children, and only

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Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. CLONING’S APOLOGIST half of them prohibit cloning for never be amenable to a treatment that biomedical research. Since Dolly’s involves repairing or replacing cells. debut, several bills pertaining to For example, Alzheimer’s disease, cloning have been introduced in both one of Wilmut’s favorite examples houses of Congress, and the House and a common rallying cry in the of Representatives has more than American stem cell debate, is one of once passed anti-cloning legislation, the least likely degenerative diseases but no such legislation has passed to benefit from embryonic stem cell the Senate. treatments. “I think the chance of Meanwhile, although Wilmut sup- doing repairs to Alzheimer’s brains ports the partial cloning ban in place by putting in stem cells is small,” in the U.K., he is silent about the fact admitted Dr. Michael Shelanski, the that the policy puts the British gov- co-director of the Taub Institute for ernment in the unfortunate position Research on Alzheimer’s disease, to of requiring that all cloned embryos the Washington Post. Ronald McKay, be destroyed after fourteen days. And researcher at the National Institute of while he says that “the specific cre- Neurological Disorders and Stroke, ation of a blastocyst for research explained the persistence of claims should be a last resort in exceptional about stem cells and Alzheimer’s situations,” his book is written pre- by saying that “people need a fairy cisely to advocate for so-called “ther- tale.” Heartfelt hopes for a cure are apeutic cloning,” which necessarily rightly important to scientists and requires the production of embryos policymakers, but trumpeting an solely to exploit them. One wonders area of research that holds little what Wilmut’s moral compromise of promise is of no help. Exaggerating “special respect” could possibly mean the promise of the research is irre- for these nascent lives that are creat- sponsible on the part of policymakers ed expressly for certain destruction. and celebrities who may not know Wilmut is no more rigorous with any better, and deceptive on the part the facts when it comes to describ- of scientists who do. ing—or selling—the medical promise The inherent duplicity involved in of embryonic stem cells. He assures “therapeutic cloning” is also evident us that “over the next few decades” in the tactics employed to convince this research will lead to “treatments the public that using cloned embryos for degenerative diseases such as is both morally permissible and sci- heart disease, spinal cord injury, liver entifically necessary. Stem cell scien- damage, diabetes, Parkinson’s, motor tists and advocates sell the dream of neuron disease, and Alzheimer’s.” “personalized biological repair kits” This grand promise masks the fact made from cloned embryos, euphe- that certain diseases will probably mistically called “unfertilized eggs”

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Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. CAITRIN NICOL or “stem cells created by nuclear risk “the hurt and emotional turmoil transfer.” Wilmut himself concedes of failed pregnancies, miscarriages, that no stem cell researcher “would and deformed fetuses.” Wilmut also dispute the idea that therapeutic points out that scientists still know cloning does not look very practi- astonishingly little about the health of cal as a mass treatment.” It would cloned large mammals, although it is require millions of donated eggs and quite clear that clone pregnancies are destroyed embryos, as well as the abnormal: fetuses of cloned animals capacity to manufacture designer tend to be overweight, the immune stem cells on the spot. The alterna- system and various organs sometimes tive, a stem cell bank, would itself fail to develop correctly, the pregnan- require “hundreds of thousands of cies tend to last significantly longer embryonic stem cell lines” in order than usual and are characterized by “to establish a bank of cells with “inadequate attempts by the mother immune matches for most poten- to give birth,” and even after birth the tial patients,” according to stem cell survival rate is appallingly low. And scientists Robert Lanza and Nadia that may not be all: Wilmut is “con- Rosenthal in Scientific American in fident that there are more horrors 2004. All moral issues aside, does because, unsurprisingly, laboratories any reasonable person believe that have been reluctant to describe all of this is the future of medicine? the anomalies they have found.” Wilmut believes that there are fac- oving from the destruction of tors “that could make cloning safer,” Mcloned embryos to the creation and that while the technical problems of cloned babies, Wilmut believes “look daunting...I would never go so that our experience with other mam- far as to say they will never be over- mals demonstrates why we should come.” Even if all the technical and not try to bring cloned human beings health problems were solved, howev- to birth. He opposes cloning to pro- er, Wilmut would oppose reproduc- duce children mostly because of the tive cloning, because he is “extremely difficulties inherent in today’s clon- concerned about the effects on a child ing techniques—obtaining the many of being a clone of another person.” eggs required to create the small Such a moral sentiment is welcome, number of potentially viable cloned even if he has little original to say embryos, and then implanting those on this important subject. Instead, embryos into women’s wombs, a he briefly recapitulates psychiatrist process that required 277 eggs and Stephen Levick’s arguments about 29 attempted pregnancies to create the psychological burdens of cloning, Dolly—and because of the “psycho- as described in Levick’s 2004 book logical dangers” to the women who Clone Being.

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Wilmut also objects to so-called And read carefully, it reveals the “designer babies,” seeing this par- moral problem with his defense of ticular use of germ-line engineer- embryo research: society, he says, ing as both technically implausible has “an obligation to intervene on and morally misguided. He warns the embryo’s behalf,” an obligation that genetic engineering wrongly that makes Wilmut’s call for a mas- applied could “undermine qualities sive research program centered upon and traits that are fundamental to the systematic destruction of nascent our humanness. They could exagger- human life seem absurd. ate intolerance of disabilities. There Although Wilmut’s book is dedi- is a need for great caution.” Wilmut cated “to the tens of millions of people even stumbles onto a critical insight who will one day benefit from research in discussing the distinction between on cloning, embryos, and stem cells,” therapy and enhancement: it is difficult to find in it much of the compassionate motivation of modern Whatever the shade of gray biotechnology. This human dimen- between enhancement and ther- sion—the scientists’ desire to relieve apy and whatever boundary is the suffering of afflicted patients, to being transgressed, one aspect of fulfill the longings of couples desper- this medical intervention stays the same: genetic enhancement...will ate to conceive, to quell the fears of be proposed by parents on behalf new parents—is largely lost amid the of their unborn child. This is about technical details. Nor is the human the fate of children of the future, meaning of the actual scientific work a decision that only has indirect always explained as clearly as it impacts on the person making the should be. Wilmut only mentions in choice. Society has an obligation to passing the taxpayer-funded research intervene on the embryo’s behalf that relies on tissues harvested from when it comes to weighing risks aborted human fetuses. He tersely and benefits of genetic alteration. notes that human gene therapy tri- Selection for traits thought by als were “disappointing” during the the parents to be beneficial could 1990s, when “scandalously irrespon- be seen as a curse by the child, as sible and deadly” would have been parents bear down to achieve their more accurate. He points out that it goals and to make their investment is now much easier to test fetuses for worthwhile. Uninhibited selection of children may erode the uncon- Down syndrome, leaving unspoken ditional love that is the bedrock of that this has led to a tremendous rise the parent-child relationship. in the abortion of fetuses suspected to have Down syndrome. This is, by far, the most seri- At one point, Wilmut observes ous moral observation in the book. that “there is no clear relationship

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Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. See www.TheNewAtlantis.com for more information. CAITRIN NICOL between intelligence and a sense of without seeing deeply or taking seri- social responsibility.” There is also, ously the moral problems raised by if this book is any indication, no their novel experiments. Perhaps clear relationship between scientific the answer is simple: serious moral renown and moral sophistication. reflection might mean real moral Wilmut, who again attracted head- limits, and this book, like so many lines last December with a proposal others of this growing genre, seems to bypass existing ethical protocols designed to protect scientific freedom in high-risk experiments on the ter- minally ill, is now creating hybrid by assuring the public that scientists embryos from human nuclei and rab- take research ethics seriously. Sadly, bit eggs. We are ultimately left to they often do not. wonder how the history-makers of the modern laboratory can be so Caitrin Nicol is a New Atlantis intern narrow, able to remake the world and a student at the University of Chicago.

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