Who’s Afraid of Human Cloning? by Gregory Pence, Rowman & Littlefield,
US, $10.95, ISBN 0847687821
OPPONENTS of human cloning are not short of allies. the Pope, presidents
Clinton of the US and Chirac of France, the G8 industrial nations at their
Denver Summit in 1997, the European Union at its Amsterdam meeting, the Council
of Europe and UNESCO, for starters. So two cheers for Gregory Pence for pointing
out that many of the dreadful fears discovered by these eminent authorities are
little more than emperor’s new clothes, which either do not exist or are so
threadbare as to constitute an affront to public decency.
His book is a rattling good polemic against the rush to condemn human
cloning. He has great fun disinterring what many of today’s bioethicists had to
say on the horrors of IVF when the birth of Louise Brown was announced in 1978.
He cites a theologian arguing then on the dangers: “No one has the moral right
to endanger a child while there is yet the option of whether the child shall
come into existence.” His reply is the old Yiddish joke: “First, life is so
terrible! Better not to have existed, but who is so lucky: not one in a
thousand.”
This is knockabout stuff, but nothing more than most of the immediate
reaction to Dolly deserved. Popular fears have been fuelled by science fiction
and films such as The Boys from Brazil, while depressingly the
arguments of the academics are little better. Much has been written on how human
cloning might “instrumentalise” the offspring. As Pence argues in Who’s
Afraid of Human Cloning?, this is to fall into the trap of genetic
determinism. All the reports on human cloning have noted the folly of ignoring
upbringing and environment.
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Such effects have been demonstrated in all the twin studies. In extreme
cases, some relatively rare genetic factors can be very penetrating, as in the
case of a genetic disorder such as cystic fibrosis (CF). But even in such
extreme cases much can be done to modify genetic effects: modern treatment has
doubled the median life expectancy of CF sufferers.
Nevertheless, we still find it solemnly pronounced that “it is not at all
clear to what extent a clone will truly be a moral agent”. The confusion stems
from a failure to be realistic about normal sexual reproduction, much of which
can be instrumental in that children have always been considered both as
potential workers and as props for their parents’ old age. Chinese peasants and
Scottish dukes alike demand male heirs. The motives that surround human
conception are irrelevant to the status of the offspring as a moral agent. After
all, it can be argued that two-thirds of American women aged between 15 and 44
are at risk of unintended pregnancy and that every year in the US, 1.5 million
pregnancies are unintended. All these offspring are moral agents, whatever the
intention or lack of it that attended their conception.
But why have I not offered three cheers for Pence? It’s because he fails to
confront the safety issues raised by Ian Wilmut’s work. He notes how
experimental techniques such as ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) were
made widely available before shown to be safe. He knows that two wrongs do not
make a right, but he still wants to plunge into human cloning.
He also fails to consider the consequences of pressure on infertile women.
Even in countries such as Britain that regulate human fertilisation and
embryology, the pressure can be severe. Finally, he ignores the evidence that
being an identical twin may be undesirable. In proper American libertarian
fashion, he wants to keep the state out of the bedroom.
