Cloning

Scientists have cloned a human embryo, and say the purpose is to produce embryonic stem cells. We still don't know for sure that we can actually produce a cloned human, since the cell division in this trial stopped at 6 cells, rather than the 150 or so needed for stem cells. However, these are just the first public steps. Who knows what is going in various private labs?

Throughout human history, technology has been used for purposes unrelated to the initial application. The obvious application here is to grow a clone of someone (who happens to be very wealthy) and harvest whatever parts the original person needs. Heart, liver, kidneys, and lungs come quickly to mind, but what about bone marrow, blood, skin, or dare I say it, a brain? Somehow growing a full clone would seem to be easier than trying to culture a particular organ from stem cells; the former is mainly a matter of letting a natural process continue.

It's clear why people want to proceed with stem cell research. In 1999 a person offered to sell their kidney on e-bay, and the bidding reached nearly $US6 million before being stopped. There is tremendous demand for organs for transplanting. The people that figure out how to culture stem cells to grow particular kinds of organs on demand will become so wealthy Bill Gates will look like a pauper. After all, he only sells a complicated computer program that crashes all too often; the organ merchants will be selling life itself.

Until 26 November 2001, the only way to create a new human being was to start with human a sperm and egg cell. They normally joined inside the mother, and developed until birth. Then so-called 'test-tube babies' came along, where the joined sperm and egg cells was implanted in a female (not necessarily the biological mother) for development until birth. Now, it seems, we can create that embryo without a sperm cell.

I think it is immaterial how the embryo is formed. Whether it's through the traditional process, or cloning, once formed they should have identical rights during the various stages of development. Should a cloned person actually come to term, they are a human being. I'll let the theologicians worry if he or she has a soul or not, I'm going to assume so.

Undifferentiated stem cells appear to hold great promise for medical treatment of a great many conditions and illnesses. Of course, scientists say that more research is needed to find out if this is true. Research on stem cells would appear to require stem cells to work on, hence the attempt to clone human cells. However, this isn't the only way to get stem cells. They can be harvested from umbilical cords and aborted fetuses.

How much stem cell material do scientists need to perform their research? I don't know. Is that amount greater than the amounts that can be gathered from existing sources? Again, I don't know. But to me, it seems to be common sense to fully use an existing resource before trying to create a new source. After all, there are almost 4 million births a year in the United States alone. That's a lot of umbilical cords.

Most people probably don't have an objection to a newborn's umbilical cord being used for research. After all, neither the mother or newborn need it anymore. Some people say that the umbilical cord should be saved as a source of stem cells should the adult need them. We don't know if that's possible yet or how long the stem cells would stay viable. So without the research, saving stem cells is futile.

However, using the stem cells from an aborted fetus is a more complex issue. This gets us deep into the ethics of abortions, and gives us another factor to complicate an already complex issue. What are we to make of the possibility that a woman might be induced to have an abortion at a particular time because of the fee she gets paid for doing so? Ignoring the fanatics on either side of the debate, most people believe that abortions are a reluctant necessity.

Until very recently, there was no incentive to get pregnant for the purpose of having an abortion. Now there is, or could be. I'm horrified by the thought of it. I'm equally horrified by the thought of creating life by cloning, only to destroy it for stem cells. What do we do about it?

We need to develop laws that clearly outline what the rules are for stem cell research and cloning. The research has to be done. The medical benefits are overwhelming. I suggest that we move forward on research involving culturing cells taken from umbilical cords for the purposes of growing organs. Only when all avenues of research are exhausted should we look at using stem cells from a fetus, or cloning an embryo. Even then, our goal should be to create particular organs, not to recreate the human being the cells were cloned from.