"Modern genetics is eugenics." — George Annas, M.D., bioethics professor at Boston University, speaking at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in WashingtonGenetics is a relatively new science. The great pioneer in the field, whose experiments provided a foundation for this branch of science, was Rev. Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), an Austrian monk. He grew peas, and saw that various traits (size, color, wrinkles) were passed from one generation to the next. Much more importantly, he saw that peas have pairs of some kind of hereditary factor. The pairs do not compromise with each other; either one or the other will be dominant. That is, if you cross a tall pea with a dwarf pea, you get some tall and some dwarf peas, but no peas of medium height. Further, in the first generation of cross-pollinated peas, they will all be tall, and in the next generation there will be three tall pea plants for every one dwarf.
Rev. Mendel's data, collected painstakingly over years, made it possible to understand that "genes" (the hereditary factors in the pea) are units, that they come in pairs, and that there are "dominant" and "recessive" traits. He presented his work to a natural science society in 1865, but at that time, his audience missed the importance of his work completely. In fact, when he died in 1884, the importance of his work was still unrecognized.
In 1909, the Danish botanist W. L. Johanssen gave the name gene to Mendel's units of heredity. The study of genes and heredity was called genetics.
Blessing or Curse
Genetics holds immense promise. It can explain many things about life, and can provide insights to cure diseases. But like "mental hygiene," genetics also holds huge dangers. Genetics can be used (or abused) to operate on the human race at the expense of the individual. Some scientists expect that genetics will make it possible to engineer improvements in the human race.
basic research ...
The most ambitious project of basic scientific research in genetics is the Human Genome Project. In 1988, Congress provided funds for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other groups to begin mapping out human DNA. The project began officially on October 1, 1990, with a projected budget of $3 billion over the next 15 years.
The task is to map the human genome, the whole collection of genes carried by each person. Each cell in the human body has a strand of DNA, a large molecule with more than 200 billion atoms. That long molecule, bundled inside a cell, has about 80,000 genes that are associated with various traits, such as eye color and height. Where are those genes, and what is in between them along the strand of DNA?
Mapping the human genome is an ambitious scientific project, like mapping the entire globe or going to the moon. The knowledge will surely lead to many benefits that we cannot foresee now.
treatments and cures ...
It seems reasonable that growing understanding of human genetics should lead to many new and successful treatments. However, the historical record of medical use of genetic information is horrendous. One of the simplest problems to detect genetically is Down syndrome, which includes some recognizable facial characteristics and some mental retardation. Genetic detection is easy, because a person with Down syndrome has an extra chromosome. But detection did not lead to treatment; for years, in nearly all cases, detection led to eugenic abortion.
The response to Down syndrome set the pattern. Now, thousands of problems, diseases or conditions can be detected genetically, but very few can be treated before birth. Detection means destruction.
Genetics is undoubtedly an exciting field, but focusing too much research funding on genetics has done huge damage. For example, there is a medical condition called spina bifida that can cause difficulty walking and other impairments. Spina bifida almost disappeared in Britain during World War II. An alert researcher who knew that could have begun looking for the changes in diet or daily habits that wiped out the disease. Instead, nearly all research money was focused on genetics, and researchers who were interested in spina bifida had to focus on genetics to get funds. So for two generations, scientists looked for the genetic basis of a disease that is caused by dietary problems.
What happened during World War II, apparently, is that there was rationing, and everyone ate bread that had folic acid in it. If a mother does not get folic acid during pregnancy, her child's spine may be damaged. But this insight was blocked for years by a research bias, a fixation on genetics. Anyone born with spina bifida after 1945 has reason to complain about genetics.
Basic research in genetics will lead to cures and treatments other than eugenic abortion. But the track record so far is shameful.
genetic engineering ... Genetics is not always seen as a great blessing; it may be the beginning of many nightmares. Like nuclear power, which could bring cheap and safe electricity or city-destroying bombs, genetics offers to cure diseases or usher in the new Hitler.
Genetics run amok is a threat because genetic engineering makes racial engineering possible. If it is possible to engineer a better human baby, it is tempting to try to engineer a better human race.
Much of the basic research is genetics is poorly understood by the general public. Often, there will be few people with the ability to oversee the scientists, who understand clearly what their work is about. The people best equipped to detect abuses by geneticists are other geneticists. This raises a problem, because so many geneticists are members of eugenics societies, or were trained by eugenicists.
The organization that led the push for the Human Genome Project was the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG). The ASHG journal and annual meetings have done much to encourage prenatal genetic testing, which often leads to eugenic abortion.
One of the leaders in the ASHG for years was Franz Kallmann. In 1938, the newsletter of the American Eugenics Society reported that Kallmann, "who was formerly associated with Dr. Ernst Rždin," was working in New York. He had fled from Germany in 1936, because he had Jewish parentage. But in both Berlin and the United States, he promoted eugenic sterilization. In fact, he thought that society should sterilize the healthy relatives of patients with schizophrenia, as well as the patients themselves.
Kallmann was among the zealots who tried to find the genetic basis for everything, such as spina bifida. He thought that tuberculosis was genetically based.
In order to trust geneticists to oversee their colleagues responsibly, you have to trust Franz Kallmann's society. Undoubtedly, the ASHG has had many members who disagreed with Kallmann — about tuberculosis, about schizophrenia, about negative eugenics and forced sterilization — but the society never criticized him or denounced his hateful and dangerous views.
Why worry about genetic engineering?
Genetic engineering has already been used to improve some fruits and vegetables, and some animals. Why not use it to improve humans? Suppose that genetic engineers can make sure your next child is not short, bald or nearsighted like you: what's wrong with that?
There are many concerns, but we will look at three:
1. Specific techniques of human genetic engineering can be grave abuses.1. If genetic engineers could intervene to treat nearsightedness in a tiny human child living in the mother's womb, that might be a great medical advance. But affecting sight genetically might require manipulating the new human at the single-cell (or zygote) stage. It might require having the single-cell human on a petri dish in the laboratory, outside the mother's womb.2. Genetic engineering and reproductive technology are dehumanizing, turning a complex human relationship into a laboratory process.
3. Genetic engineering seems to make positive eugenics possible, but in practice it will be linked to negative eugenics.
In a society that is accustomed to in vitro fertilization, it is not uncommon to have human zygotes and embryos in dishes in labs. Nonetheless, some people consider this practice offensive, inhuman and immoral.
2. One of the problems with genetic engineering is suggested in the phrase "reproductive technology." The phrase refers to a whole list of procedures for starting human life in ways other than sexual intercourse. The idea that human sexual activity can be reduced to techniques is obscene.
Obscenity is offensive, not because it shows sexual activity, which is a beautiful and precious thing. It is is offensive because it strips sexual activity of meaning, taking it out of the context of a tender and private human relationship. "Reproductive technology" does the same thing.
3. Genetic engineering seems to make positive eugenics possible, at long last. But it is sobering to look at the cutting edge of reproductive technology in different communities. For the rich, the cutting edge is in vitro fertilization, artificial or assisted insemination, genetic counseling, and perhaps genetic engineering and cloning on the horizon. But for the poor, the cutting edge of reproductive technology is new birth control technology, like Norplant implants or Depo-Provera injections.
Mary Lyman Jackson, president of Exodus Youth Services, Inc., a street ministry serving runaways and latchkey kids on the streets on Washington, talked about genetic engineering and cloning. In testimony before the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (May 2, 1997), she said:
I live in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in a nice suburban community, but spend a lot of time on the streets in Washington. I am very conscious of the way the differences between these two communities are developing, and it worries me.Mrs. Jackson saw clearly that genetic engineering has revived the central eugenics agenda: "more from the fit, less from the unfit."I hear people talking about life in the suburbs in ways that are very different than from life in the streets. And it is the differences that concern me.
I do not know of anyone in the suburbs who has birth control pushed on them, but my girls in the inner-city do. They tell me a different story. And I do not know of anyone in the city who expects to get any benefit from genetic engineering. ...
I tell you one thing my street kids know. They know they have dignity. They know when you treat them with respect, and they appreciate it. But they see a lot of disrespect. I think they can see some things that great scientists might miss. Cloning is not a very respectful way to treat human life.
A researcher can get lost in charts and graphs and test tubes and petri dishes and might forget that human life is very precious. These kids get treated as specimens and research objects enough that they have a different attitude towards all this science.
These children know that scientists can treat people like things. They know it, because they have seen how much work goes into persuading them to get on birth control or have an abortion.
Artificial insemination may not be such a wonderful service. It may distort and destroy human relationships, and make children into salable commodities. One generation ago, human sex was fairly straightforward, with a father and a mother engaging in sexual activity and producing a child. Now, technicians stand ready to help, obtaining sperm from one source (the father or a sperm donor) and an ovum from another source (the mother or an egg donor), bringing the sperm and ovum together in a uterus (the mother's, or a surrogate mother's) or in a petri dish. If fertilization occurs, growth can go forward in the mother's or the surrogate mother's womb. At birth, the child could have a father who commissioned the whole project, a natural father who donated the sperm, a mother who is legally connected to the father, a natural mother who donated the egg, and a surrogate mother who provided the child with a home in her uterus for the first nine months of life. The child's "parents" might be half a village, and that is before anyone gets divorced.
The new birth control methods available for the poor include Depo-Provera and Norplant. Depo-Provera is an injection that is effective for three months. Norplant is a long-acting birth control system. It consists of six plastic rods that are inserted under the woman's skin. For the next five years, birth control hormones leach out of the rods. With birth control Pills, gynecologists spend much time adjusting dosage levels to prevent complications; but Norplant cannot be adjusted that way; it is a one-size-fits-all system, designed to last for years. In the first few years after distribution began in the United States, five percent of users complained and then sued the manufacturer.
Norplant was developed by the Population Council, a group heavily influenced by eugenics which had worked on IUDs in previous years. IUDs and Norplant are effective depopulation tools: once a user accepts them, the family planning worker does not have to do anything else for a long time to prevent births from that woman. But IUDs were once driven off the American market (at least for a time) by lawsuits, because they damaged women, and the same thing may happen with Norplant.
Causing Sterility with Acid Burns
Norplant is not the worst birth control method available. Two men in North Carolina have traveled around the world promoting something even worse. It is called quinacrine.
Quinacrine is a drug that was used to treat malaria suffered by U.S. troops in World War II. It is also effective against tapeworm. But in the 1980s, a Chilean doctor began using it to sterilize women. When quinacrine is formed into small pellets and inserted into a woman's uterus, it burns and scars her uterus. If scar tissue forms across the mouth of the fallopian tubes, this will sterilize the woman, either by preventing fertilization or by preventing a newly conceived embryonic human from entering the uterus.
This barbaric method of birth control has many potential side effects for women. It works by burning women's insides, and this is often quite painful. It causes cell mutation, and therefore may be a cancer-causing drug. It causes bleeding, backaches, fever, abdominal pain and headaches among other problems. It causes ectopic pregnancies, which are always fatal for the child and often fatal for the mother. So the World Health Organization opposes its use.
Using quinacrine for population control is cheap; it costs about a penny per pellet to produce. It can be administered to a woman during a routine pelvic examination. In fact, family planning specialists who care more about the population explosion than about their patients can administer quinacrine without the patient's knowledge. Thousands of women have discovered that they were sterilized using quinacrine without their knowledge or consent.
For years, two American crusaders, Stephen Mumford and Elton Kessel, flew around the world with quinacrine pellets in their suitcases, distributing them in Third World countries like Vietnam, India and Bangladesh. They were responsible for mass sterilization programs affecting thousands and thousands of women in several poorer countries.
According to Mumford, quinacrine is "essential to population-growth control." Speaking about the population of the United States, he said, "This explosion in human numbers which . . . will come entirely from immigrants and the offspring of immigrants, will dominate our lives. There will be chaos and anarchy."
Sipharm Sesseln AG, a Swiss drug company, produced the quinacrine pellets for Mumford and Kessel. However, due to the worldwide public outcry against quinacrine, they no longer produce it, and no other company offered to do so (at least publicly, as of 1999). But Mumford said that he had bottles of it stored in the basement of his North Carolina home.
Human Cloning
It may seem unfair to insist on looking at various methods of negative eugenics in a discussion of genetic engineering. But when you look at the debate over human cloning, you see that positive eugenics cannot be separated from negative eugenics.
In 1997, a Scottish researcher announced that he had cloned a sheep, Dolly. This was the first time that anyone had been able to clone a mammal successfully, although scientists had been cloning amphibians for decades.
The announcement led to an international debate over human cloning. If it is possible to clone mammals, would anyone clone humans? Should anyone clone humans?
A few months before the announcement, President Clinton had appointed a new National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC). He asked them to study the new development in Scotland and give him advice about American policy on cloning, in 90 days.
The Commission's advice was not easy to understand. They proposed a new definition of "cloning," and recommended a ban — not on cloning, but on implantation of cloned embryos. This recommendation, if implemented, would change human cloning research (if it is indeed possible) in several very significant ways. First, it means that human cloning research would proceed on the assumption that human embryos are not human beings. Many people do accept that assumption, but not everyone; and the assumption is based on the eugenic interpretation of evolutionary biology. Second, it means that human cloning research would involve a great deal of destruction; human embryos would be created for research only, and would then be destroyed.
There is a third problem, that is subtle but important. Consider what happens if you permit a little cloning of tiny human entities. When a researcher has a cloned human embryo in his laboratory, that is exactly like being a little bit pregnant. That embryo will die, or become an adult human being. Cloning researchers assure us that they will kill all the embryos, and not start raising cloned humans. But who wants the embryos killed? Aside from a temporary concern about public relations, the only reason for killing those human embryos would be eugenics, a concern about quality control. Pro-lifers would demand that they live, and fertility clinics would want to use them. Researchers would want to continue their work on them. It is dishonest to clone human embryos and pretend that you will not clone adults.
When President Clinton launched his National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) in 1996, American Life League responded by forming a citizens' group called the American Bioethics Advisory Commission (ABAC). In 1997, the two groups published reports on human cloning. The NBAC's pro-cloning report was called Cloning Human Beings. The ABAC's response was Ban Human Cloning. An excerpt from the ABAC report follows:The meeting of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission on May 17, 1997, concerned a number of proposed recommendations to the President on human cloning. Among them was a call for a legislative ban. But the proposal, as worded at that time, was extremely mischievous.
The proposal was to ban "cloning" defined as "creation of a child by nuclear transfer from a somatic cell." The problem in this definition arises over the question of when one has created a child. Some people consider a child to come into existence at birth or later, perhaps at age three; others think a child comes into existence at fertilization. As of May 17, it appeared that the position of the NBAC was that a child comes into existence at some point after fertilization, perhaps at implantation. So the definition of "cloning" referred to nuclear transfer followed by implantation. By that definition, a researcher or clinician who initiates a human embryo by nuclear transfer but does not implant the embryo is not violating a ban against cloning. The researcher violates the ban only when he implants the cloned embryo.
A critique of the proposal to ban cloning, as defined this way, follows.
1. The proposal protects a clone-and-kill option.
The ban on cloning as defined would permit a researcher in the United States to use the technique pioneered in Scotland (i.e., to transfer a nucleus from a somatic cell to an enucleated ovum) on humans, but with the proviso that any human embryo (any embryonic child) whose life began in this way must not be implanted (i.e., must be killed).
In the human embryo research battle three years ago, many people pointed out the evil of initiating human life not as a service to infertile couples but solely for research purposes. Members of the NBAC frequently stated their determination to avoid that fight. And yet, the proposal to ban cloning defined this way amounts to approval for human cloning — solely for research purposes. With this language, it would be legal to clone as long as you kill.
2. The proposal would ban implantation, not cloning.
Ian Wilmut's new technique is not implanting an embryo in a uterus; many researchers and many infertility clinics can do that. What Wilmut did that was new was to transfer a strand of DNA from a somatic cell to an enucleated ovum, and then keep the zygote alive. The proposed language would not ban using this new technique with humans; rather, it would ban the implantation of cloned embryos. It would be deceptive, therefore, to call this language a "cloning ban."
3. The proposal would be, in effect, a two-step approval process for cloning adult humans.
It is hard to tell whether the proposal is designed to prevent or permit cloning adult humans. If it is designed to prevent cloning adults, it will fail. If it is designed to permit cloning human adults, it would be more intellectually honest to say so clearly.
The proposed definition of "cloning" lumps together two separate actions: (1) nuclear transfer and (2) implantation. Hence, a ban on "cloning" under this definition would permit the first step but not the second step. The first step is very complicated; the second step is routine in IVF clinics all over the country.
Most people who are discussing a ban on human cloning mean, quite simply, banning nuclear transfer, the Wilmut technique, for humans. This proposal permits nuclear transfer, but ban the combination of nuclear-transfer-and-implantation.
If you lump the two steps together and ban the combination, as proposed, then you have effectively permitted step one, which is the complicated and new technique. But if you permit the first step, you will be unable to prevent the second step. Pressure to approve implantation — or to implant the embryo without approval, or to implant the embryo overseas — will build steadily, and you will not be able to prevent it. If you approve the nuclear transfer technique, you will eventually approve implantation. And whether you approve of implantation or not is irrelevant; it will occur.
The proposal of May 17 included a sunset provision in the cloning legislation. It would be more honest to call the sunset provision a "step two" provision.
4. The arguments against implantation of a human embryo are hard to maintain.
Polls after the Scottish experiment showed that about 90% of Americans wanted a ban on human cloning. The proposed language separates that opposition into component pieces: some may oppose nuclear transfer, and some may oppose implantation, but perhaps it would be possible to oppose nuclear-transfer-and-implantation. But this is not an honest maneuver unless you can explain the reasons to oppose implantation of a cloned embryo.
Consider the shape of the argument after nuclear transfer has taken place (assuming it succeeds):
Pro-lifers, who oppose cloning, would argue fiercely that once you have a living embryo, you have a grave obligation to protect his or her life. Pro-lifers, who oppose cloning, would argue fiercely that implantation is a moral obligation. Recall that when the British were approaching their time limit for frozen embryos and preparing to discard thousands in a single day, the Vatican worked to recruit prospective parents to adopt the abandoned kids.If the arguments against implantation are weak, then it is an error (at best) to permit nuclear-transfer-without-implantation, and to pretend that this is an effective barrier to cloning adult humans.Privacy advocates such as John Robertson would argue that the privacy rights of infertile couples include a right to this new technique, that implantation was the parents' right. Pro-lifers and privacy advocates would be arguing for the same conclusion: permit implantation.
It is hard to imagine researchers arguing against implantation if pro-lifers and privacy advocates argue for it.
Eugenics may offer an argument against implantation: the child whose life began with cloning might be abnormal in some way, or have a low quality of life. The eugenics argument, however, would be an argument against implantation in some circumstances, not against implantation of cloned embryos in general.
5. A ban on implantation is unenforceable.
If the United States were to ban cloning in this way, a team of researchers could carry out nuclear transfer in one place, and then ship the embryo to another clinic for implantation. It is not clear that either party would be violating the proposed ban on nuclear-transfer-and-implantation.
Even if you were to tighten the language in some way to make clear that nuclear transfer in a laboratory followed by implantation in a clinic somewhere else is illegal, it is still hard to imagine how you would check on the source of the embryos. During meetings of the NBAC, various people noted many times that in vitro fertilization clinics do not meet the standards of the rest of the medical profession.
6. The proposed ban is not compatible with international cooperation.
At the May 17 meeting, the NBAC discussed recommendations to be forwarded to the President, including one suggested by Alexander Capron, that the United States cooperate with other nations that also ban cloning, in order to prevent international or transnational abuses. But the proposed definition of cloning is very different from the definitions used elsewhere, and would make honest cooperation more difficult.
In fact, the proposed ban on implantation is an invitation to international abuse. If a team of researchers were to carry out nuclear transfer in this country, then ship the embryo to another country where nuclear transfer is problematic but implantation is not, they might be able to clone, implant, and bring the child to birth without violating any laws — although both countries tried to ban cloning. This scam would not work everywhere, since Germany bans nuclear transfer and also bans implantation, and Spain bans importing embryos. But England might be a possibility.
It would be a scandal if the United States passed a "ban" on human cloning, only to become the most attractive location for human cloning research. If other nations hear that we have banned cloning, who will explain to them that we didn't mean it, that our ban applies to implantation, although it says "cloning"? It would be a scandal to ban but not ban, to write a ban with a wink.
7. A ban on implantation amounts to forced abortion.
Many people (though not everyone) consider a human embryo to be a member of the human family, possessing all of the God-given rights that any human has. From that perspective, a requirement that some embryos (in this case, cloned embryos) be discarded is the same as forced abortion. Obviously, discarding cloned embryos does not end a pregnancy, and is not abortion in that sense. But discarding embryos does end the life of human beings, and is abortion in that sense. To require such deaths by law would be new in this country, although the Chinese have had forced abortion for some years.
8. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Many people argue that experimenting upon or killing embryos is gravely evil. It would be cynical to pretend to accommodate that position in any way by approving of one evil (nuclear transfer) on the condition that it is followed by another evil (discarding or killing the embryo). Two wrongs do not make a right.
9. The proposal would make education and communication harder, not easier.
One of the tasks of a national bioethics group, discussed at several meetings of the NBAC, is to facilitate the national dialogue about bioethical issues. But this proposal is centered on a quirky definition of "cloning" that would make it much harder to communicate. At NBAC meetings, members felt it was necessary to specify "cloning in the baby-making sense" when they were referring to nuclear-transfer-and-implantation. Speakers at their meetings used the word "cloning" to refer to: (1) the whole process of making genetically identical adults by asexual replication, or (2) more specifically to the critical technique that initiates life, "nuclear transfer." (Of course, there are other unrelated meaning, referring to cloning cells and other entities). None of the experts who testified before the NBAC used the word "cloning" to refer to nuclear-transfer-and-implantation.
There is a great need for precise language, but this proposal would obfuscate the discussion. If this language were adopted, anyone who wished to refer to Wilmut's new procedure would have to use some clumsy circumlocution. What Wilmut did that was new is generally called "cloning." It is hard to understand why anyone would use the word in this novel way unless they intended to cause confusion.
10. The proposal invites cynicism.
A quirky definition of "cloning" would make it possible to appear to ban cloning even as you actually permitted it. Polls that showed 90% of Americans were in favor of a ban on cloning. On the other hand, none of the professional societies polled by the NBAC supported legislative restrictions of any kind. It seemed impossible to bridge these two radically opposed views. But if one were to redefine cloning, it would be possible to ban something, and assure the public that you were responding to their concerns, but still permit the researchers to move ahead without restraint. That would be a scam. It could work, because it would be very clever, but it would still be a scam.
On June 17, 1997, Sen. Bill Frist held a Senate hearing on "Ethics and Theology: A Continuation of the National Discussion on Human Cloning." The following argument offered by John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe is from that hearing, as reported in the Congressional Record.1. Eugenics
One nightmare scenario built on human cloning that is in the back of many people's minds is Brave New World, a science fiction novel about a world shaped by eugenics written by Aldous Huxley, whose family were leaders in the British Eugenics Society for at least three generations. In that novel, cloning is used to produce workers efficiently. But no one today is openly planning to manufacture workers that way, so a concern about eugenics may strike some people as misplaced. It is not misplaced; eugenics is a real threat.
Cloning could be used to breed slaves, but could also be used to breed an elite. Many white supremacists studying global demography have noted that 95 percent of the next generation will be born in developing nations. For eugenicists, this is a nightmare, and cloning northern Europeans could relieve their anxieties.
There is a more immediate problem than cloning either drones or elites, though. In reproductive technology today, the cutting edge for the rich is genetic counseling and artificial or assisted insemination — and now, perhaps, cloning. By painful contrast, the cutting edge of reproductive technology for the poor includes Norplant and Depo-Provera. This is true within the United States and around the world. It is foolish to pretend that plans to improve the quality of life for the rich can be separated from plans to decrease the population of the poor; the issues are related. The old eugenics slogan still applies: "More from the fit, less from the unfit: that is the chief aim of birth control."
Further, the whole idea of human cloning is based on a flawed vision of humanity, a twisted kind of anthropology, that is immensely dangerous even though it is not always easy to see. The key idea in eugenics is to treat humans like animals. It is obvious that breeding roses and tomatoes and cattle to improve the species is a good idea; why do we hesitate to breed the world's most valuable species? The proponents of this idea have rarely stated it so baldly since the fall of Berlin. But the idea is simple: humans are smart animals. So the proponents of human cloning made an immediate leap from a report of sheep cloning to plans for human cloning, stepping over the bright line — animal versus human — that divides legitimate science from horror.
An alternative view of humanity is that humans are made in the image of God, and are invited to live with God forever. It is standard in the field of bioethics to insist that such religious views have no place in a dialogue in a pluralistic society. So religious speakers often use a word that everyone can understand, that can refer to humanity's unique relationship with God but is also accessible to everyone in the culture. That word is "dignity." Opponents of cloning who testified before the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (Leon Kass, Gilbert Meilaender, Rev. Albert Moraczewski and several members of the public) used the word frequently. But the supporters of cloning (John Robertson and Ruth Macklin) and the NBAC members themselves never used the word in their dialogue, except to disparage it (until the final meeting when Dr. Bernard Lo intervened with great determination to get the word into their report).
Dr. James Childress was pulled reluctantly into a discussion of human dignity at the NBAC meeting on May 2, 1997. His remark was fascinating, because he situated dignity in society rather than in the individual. He said that when critics of cloning express a concern that the practice would "undermine human dignity," that "suggests to me that we are talking about a value in the society that would be seriously subverted. But I don't think it would be subverted by five, ten, perhaps even 100 acts of human cloning. But it might well be subverted by a social practice of cloning." By contrast, the Catholic Church teaches that the touchstone by which all social policies in all fields should be measured is the impact on the dignity of the individual.
2. Penetrating through denials about eugenics
In his remarks about the cloning hearing, Sen. Ted Kennedy noted that cloning might "give rise to unacceptable forms of eugenics." One wonders what forms of eugenics are acceptable. Throughout the discipline of bioethics today, there is discussion of a resurgence of benign eugenics.
The NBAC report mentions that some people are concerned about eugenics, but then it quickly falls into a trap, denouncing the bad science that was used by eugenicists earlier this century. Eugenics fell into disrepute after World War II, not because of bad science but because Hitler lost the war. Most histories of eugenics say that the field was reformed by Frederick Osborn, a leader in the American Eugenics Society, who drove out the racism and bad science. But in fact, Osborn was President of the Pioneer Fund, a secretive white supremacist organization, during this "reform." And at least 126 members of the American Eugenics Society (AES) were also members of the American Society of Human Genetics ...
In the 1960s, Osborn urged that the AES continue its work, but under a different name. In a speech in 1956, he said people "won't accept the idea that they are in general, second rate. We must rely on other motivation [to reduce the birth rate of the dysgenic]." He called the new motivation "a system of voluntary unconscious selection." The way to persuade people to exercise this voluntary unconscious selection was to appeal to the idea of "wanted" children. Osborn said, "Let's base our proposals on the desirability of having children born in homes where they will get affectionate and responsible care." In this way, the eugenics movement "will move at last towards the high goal which Galton set for it."*1
Osborn stated the public relations problem bluntly: "Eugenic goals are most likely to be attained under a name other than eugenics."*2 He pointed to genetic counseling as a prime example: "Heredity clinics are the first eugenic proposals that have been adopted in a practical form and accepted by the public. . . . The word eugenics is not associated with them."*3
The effort to understand eugenics today is still plagued by the flat denials of its most articulate proponents. For example, the Eugenics Quarterly was renamed Social Biology in 1969, and the American Eugenics Society was renamed the Society for the Study of Social Biology in 1973. And yet the nation's most prominent teacher of social biology, E. O. Wilson at Harvard University, says he is not eugenicist. It is impossible to define the word in a way that respects history and excludes Wilson's views. He teaches that there is a continuum from animals to humans, that intelligence is what makes us special, and that "[t]he organism is only DNA's way of making more DNA." He has written studies of ants that are delightful until you grasp that his understanding of ants is a metaphor for the human race: in his view, the race is what matters, and the individual is insignificant.
3. New issue: forced abortion The NBAC recommended that research go forward on somatic cell nuclear transfer as long as the process did not result in "creating a child." But embryos become adults (after being children at some undefined intermediate stage) unless they die along the way. A policy that permits human cloning (i.e., somatic cell nuclear transfer) but prohibits making children requires the death of embryonic (or fetal or infant?) human beings.
The NBAC did not discuss the issue of forced abortion at all, although their recommendation requires it. Note that forced abortion is not compatible with a pro-life position, nor with a "pro-choice" position. It is compatible with eugenics.
Alexander Capron said that embryos die all the time in in vitro fertilization (IVF), and that this is not new. He misses the point. IVF clinics are not currently required by law to kill embryos. The issue of government-mandated killing of humans at any stage is new in the United States (although the practice is not new to the oppressed people of China).
4. New issue: objectification by law
The NBAC report includes a professional discussion of objectification, or treating people as things. It is one of the concerns that some critics raise about human cloning. But the NBAC did not discuss the fact their recommendations are very specific in demanding that cloned humans be treated as things.
The policy of the President and of Congress, expressed in law, is that human embryos can be neither created nor used solely for research purposes in Federally funded projects (at least under HHS). The NBAC proposed not only that cloned embryos could be used for research purposes in the private sector, but that they must be used solely for research purposes.
This is mandated objectification. This is a mandate to discriminate against human beings whose lives are initiated by cloning — to treat embryonic humans whose lives began normally in one way, and to treat embryonic humans whose lives began by cloning in a (lethally) different way.
The recommendation to mandate objectification may have been an accidental oversight by the NBAC. However, it is worth noting that treating people like animals is compatible with eugenics. Eugenics, which denies that there is a significant difference between animals and humans, would permit such mandated objectification.
5. Protect legitimate science
The technology of cloning is immensely exciting. It may save billions of dollars in animal husbandry. Perhaps it can be used to rescue some endangered species. Certainly it offers powerful insights into basic biology. But the excitement has been overshadowed by immense concern about the horrors of a brave new world. It is the task of policy makers to discern, explain and defend the bright line between the legitimate excitement of science and the horror of technology run amok. Fortunately, the bright line in this situation is familiar to every human being on the globe. It is the line between animals and humans. Eugenics would resist drawing a sharp line between animals and humans.
The obvious line should be strengthened, not only for the sake of the human race but also for the sake of science. Those who seek to draw the line anywhere else are attacking science, demanding that scientists operate under a cloud of suspicion.
6. Freedom from fear
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we have known that technology makes many new and wonderful things possible. But it seems that the great servant of technology became our master in 1945. Two generations have grown up with the bomb, living with constant if quiet fear. Many people have an expectation or belief, often unstated, that whatever can be done, will be done. This is a form of slavery.
In his testimony before the NBAC, Leon Kass spoke about human freedom and dignity, and noted that the prospect of human cloning offers the human race a tremendous opportunity to fight for freedom. Human freedom is not in cloning, but in refusing to clone, making a choice for the whole human race. If we look at sweet technology and see fascinating possibilities, and then refuse to go down that road because it is wrong, and if we can make that refusal stick — if we can do that even once — the slavery of the bomb will be broken. We will know once again that humanity can use technology without being overwhelmed. What can be done, need not be done. Fight for freedom.
1. What is the cutting edge of reproductive technology for the rich? What is the cutting edge of reproductive technology for the poor?
2. What is artificial or assisted insemination?
3. Who developed Norplant? What else has this group done?
4. What is quinacrine, and who promotes it?
5. What was the recommendation about human cloning from President Clinton's bioethics advisory group (NBAC)?
Discuss: If the NBAC proposal is adopted and cloning is permitted for experimental purposes, what is the argument against implantation?
