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Therapeutic Cloning: It's About Much More Than Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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Therapeutic Cloning: It's About Much More Than Embryonic Stem Cell Research Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development Volume 20 Issue 1 Volume 20, Fall 2005, Issue 1 Article 3 Therapeutic Cloning: It's About Much More Than Embryonic Stem Cell Research Wesley J. Smith Esq. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/jcred This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THERAPEUTIC CLONING: IT'S ABOUT MUCH MORE THAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH WESLEY J. SMITH, ESQ.* Thank you very much. Hello everybody. Coming from California and seeing my governor [Arnold Schwarzenegger] on the television screen made me think: My governor can beat up your governor. [Laughter] I love it when I am introduced as a "distinguished" speaker because that's just a way of saying that I'm getting old and I have gray hair. I am a lawyer. I have been asked to speak for twenty-five minutes. Being a lawyer, speaking for only twenty-five minutes is very hard for me, but I will do my best. I want all of you to understand something very clearly, that when Dr. Roberge was contemplating potential future moral and ethical dilemmas with regard to using cloned fetuses for experiments, he was not engaging in alarmism. As I will describe, it is already becoming clear that this research is not going to be restricted to the use of early embryos in Petri dishes. From my perspective as I observe today's experiments and advocacy, it is becoming increasingly clear that many of the advocates pursuing these technologies have no intention of engaging in any kind of reasonable or meaningful self-restraint. A few minutes ago, we talked about how states are going forward promoting research without any real public debate. Well, one of the reasons is that the scientists will not slow down long enough to allow us to have a reasonable a public conversation about the science and ethics involved with these technologies. In fact, many in the science establishment now say hubristically that the opinion of the lay public is irrelevant * These remarks are an actual transcript of the author's comments at the St. John's Journal of Legal Commentary Symposium on Feb. 25, 2005. 30 ST JOHN'S JOURNAL OFLEGAL COMMENTARY [Vol. 20:1 because these are science issues and only scientists should be able to determine what is moral or immoral in science. But the controversies over biotechnology are not really a science debate; rather, they involve crucial arguments over ethics and morality. Since we are all going to enjoy the benefits or suffer the consequences of this research, we all have a right to participate in the debate. That is why forums like this are so important: we do have to get into these issues, and having such a wide, distinguished group of people to discuss these issues is so important. These are dual use technologies: they can be used for both good and bad. One of the speakers earlier said they could be used for great good and that is true - great human good. However, they can also, I am afraid, be used for great human harm. I was struck as I was listening to these presentations, that much of biotechnology is not controversial. Adult stem cell research, for example, is not meaningfully opposed by anyone. Creating cancer drugs that were individualized to the patient's genome is not controversial. However, human cloning and embryonic stem cell research are controversial. And that is because these two issues uniquely involve something a matter that is quite crucial: what does it mean to be human? Does human life have intrinsic value simply and merely because it is human? Or, are there other ways, other than mere humanity, that we should use to measure the moral worth of a given human life? I do not have time to get too deeply into this today, but there is one element of this debate that you need to know about: the definition of "person." There is a real drive within bioethics, as well as in biosciences and philosophy, to say that being human is not what confers moral value. Indeed, in this view, being human, in and of itself, is irrelevant to moral value. Instead, what counts is whether one is a person, which is earned by possessing certain subjective criteria, such as level of cognition or level of awareness. Peter Singer of Princeton University defines a person as a being who is "self aware over time;" and only such a being is entitled to what the average American might call full 20051 THERAPEUTIC CLONING human rights.' However, if a being does not possess the requisite cognitive capacities, then that moral value does not apply - even if that being is a human being. Thus, there are many thinkers who are actually very clearly and very specifically asserting that there are many humans who are not persons. Now, many would say that unborn fetuses are not persons, and that has played out in other public controversies as well as in biotechnological controversies. We all know that. But many bioethicists also assert that newborn infants are not persons because they are not "self aware over time." Peter Singer has questioned, for example, whether there is any intrinsic difference between a late term fetus and a newborn infant. 2 He asserts that when it comes to cognitive capacities, there is not much of a difference. 3 And, as a result, Singer has posited two theories: that there should be an absolute right to abortion for nine months, and that infanticide should be permitted. Thus, parents should be able to kill their children if those children do not meet the parents' needs or if those children will cause more unhappiness than happiness.4 Some might shrug this off is being merely theoretical. But in the Netherlands today, eugenic infanticide is being carried out routinely. 5 About ninety cases of infanticide a year occur in the Netherlands because of their euthanasia program. 6 This topic of infanticide could be the subject of a separate speech that could take another hour to discuss. 1 See Adam Kolber, Note, Standing Upright: The Moral and Legal Standing of Humans and Other Apes, 54 STAN. L. REV. 163, 182 (2001) (noting that "[flor Singer, human and nonhuman animals have interests if they have the ability to experience pains or pleasures"). 2 See PETER SINGER, PRACTICAL ETHICS 131 (Cambridge Univ. Press 1979) (positing that "the potential of a fetus to become a rational, self-conscious being cannot count against killing it at a stage when it lacks these characteristics"). 3 See id. (noting that defective children do not possess "rationality, autonomy and self- consciousness"). 4 See id. at 132 (stating that, customarily, parents are happy at the births of their children, but some "[plarents may, with good reason, regret that a defective child was ever born"). 5 See Cheryl Eckstein, Infanticide; Part One: Infanticide and Nonvoluntary Euthanasia as Practiced in the Netherlands (1994), available at http://www. chninternational.comichninfo3.htm (noting that doctors in Netherlands practice eugenic infanticide on disabled infants). 6 See id. (stating that one hospital euthanized twenty-four of five hundred disabled infants). 32 ST JOHN'S JOURNAL OF LEGAL COMMENTARY [Vol. 20:1 So, who are other supposed human "non persons?" Well, some argue that people like Terri Schiavo are supposedly "non persons" because Terri had been diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state.7 Personally, I do not believe that she is a "non-person," but let us just assume she is one for the moment. Due to that situation, some bioethicists, for example, James Hughes of Trinity University in Hartford, argue that people like Terri, diagnosed to be in persistent vegetative states, should be considered property.8 Some bioethicists even argue that people like President Ronald Reagan in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease might be considered human "non persons." Other bioethicists go so far as to declare that psychotics who are enough out of touch with reality should be considered human "non persons." This denial of universal human personhood leads us to some very worrisome issues: If we believe that human life has no intrinsic value simply and merely because it is human, then that permits us to do just about anything we want to human non persons. For example, we can create human life for the purpose of researching upon and destroying it-as occurs with human therapeutic cloning. Furthermore, if we can exploit unborn human lives because they are not 'persons;' can we also do that to already-born human "non persons?" 9 Some very notable commentators believe so. Here is just one example, from CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE; where two Harvard doctors suggest that, "individuals who desire to donate their organs and who are either neurologically devastated or imminently dying should be allowed to donate their organs, without first being declared dead."1O America, and indeed the world, does have an organ 7 See Bob Jones, Two Steps Back - Abortion: As Pro-lifers March, the Supreme Court Deals Their Cause a Rebuke, WORLD MAG., Feb. 5, 2005 (noting opinion of Ken Connor, Florida attorney, who stated "[e]ffectively, Terri Schiavo is being treated as a non-person who does not receive the benefit of the protections provided by the Constitution"). 8 See Olivia Ward, Evolution's Next Stage?, TOR.
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