The Science & Ethics of Human Cloning
Presented by Paul Huizenga, PhD, Professor, GVSU
About the Speaker
About the Event
Announcements
Meeting Minutes for December 8, 1999; #59.
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are willing to moderate a meeting, contact us.———————————————————————————h3. Presentation
The topic for this meeting was “The Science & Ethics of Human Cloning”
and was presented by Professor Paul Huizenga of GVSU. Professor Huizenga
teaches biology courses including biomedical ethics and presented a
paper on ethical issues associated with cloning at the National Science
Teachers Association Convention in October.
He opened by telling us that this was a bit like coming home, as he had
done a presentation @ the Wyoming Public Library to another group years
before on the then- hot issue of surrogate parenting. It was mentioned
how sperm donation, “test tube” babies and other alternative
reproduction techniques that had been highly controversial are now
hardly newsworthy.
Professor Huizenga informed us that plant cloning had been done since
the 50’s, as well as successful results in cloning frogs. However, with
the amphibians, the achievements were not made with adult frogs but
rather with tadpoles. This brought us to “Dolly,” the first mammal to be
successfully cloned from an adult cell. The Finn-Dorset sheep was cloned
from a 6 year old sheep by Ian Wilmut’s research team @ the Roslin
Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland using the DNA from an udder cell (as
this cell was extracted from a mammary organ, the connotation with Dolly
Parton arose, hence the name given to the clone, with Ms Parton’s
permission). Previously, two rhesus monkeys had been cloned as well in
heralded, because they were cloned from embryonic cell DNA. As the
blastocyst further develops, the cells specialize more, making it ever
more difficult (most scientists thought impossible, pre-Dolly) to induce
them to grow into an entire organism, rather than a specific part of an
organism.
After nearly 300 attempts, Dolly was the successful outcome of the
cloning technique whereby the nucleus of an udder cell was removed an
inserted into a surrogate egg cell of another sheep, the DNA of which
had been excised, leaving only the information from the donor; the
complete set of chromosomes, not half from one and half from another as
in sexual reproduction. One aspect of this event we were given to
consider was that the telomeres that dictate cellular longevity were
already those of an adult sheep, so its clone was born with this
shortened telomeric aspect, as well as DNA that reflects the exposure to
environmental toxins and other factors that the donor had gone through.
Some effects of this have been noted in Dolly already, though how it
will affect her lifespan remains to be seen.
Since naturally- occurring identical twins are a good example of share
DNA expressed in two beings, the creation of clones has been thought of
as a “delayed genetic twin.”
We discussed some of the motivations people would have to engage in this
process, if it involved human cloning. One of which was the
“replacement” of a child who had died. This brought up the old
Nature/Nurture question as to their respective influences. One thought
on this was that genetics sets the stage but the environment allows the
potential to be attained. Another factor discussed was the psychological
one; knowing you were intentionally copied, for instance. Also what
rights would such individuals have. And we talked about the physical
potential harm. Not only that, so far, no process has been realized that
can reverse the above mentioned factors of environmental toxins and
telomeric age of the DNA used, but also that this would create
individuals that are vulnerable to various diseases, lacking the genetic
diversity that is gained in sexual reproduction. various blights were
called up in agriculture to bolster this concern.
One surprise that came out of the research was by accident. Cells placed
in a growth medium were unintentionally given insufficient nutrients,
yet these starved cells divided better and were more viable than those
tended to more.
Among livestock, the uses for these techniques include the creation of
an unlimited supply of individuals that are seen as ideal, thus
nullifying the unpredictability that occurs in artificial selection via
sexual reproduction.
Another use would be to genetically alter individuals that can be made
to produce medicines in their bodies (insulin for diabetics, etc., etc.)
and then cloning these animals with the same medicine- producing
characteristics innate to them.
Most interest, however, centers around tissues, not entire creatures.
One controversial aspect of this is fetal tissue research and use, such
as to treat Parkinson’s Disease. Some feel that this encourages
abortions. Cells now, however, can be taken from the patient and
encouraged to grow around a sort of mold to the proper shape, and then
surgically implanted without rejection complications. Many people now
have heart valves, as an example, that are from pigs. With genetic
engineering, the cells can be given genetic markers from the patient so
that the foreign cells are assimilated without rejection here again.
When cells can be genetically manipulated to become specific types,
regeneration of tissues is made possible, including nerve cells that may
lead to effective treatments for paralysis.
The control of cellular manifestation and that of programming cells when
and for how long to grow, brings up thoughts of programming cancer cells
to die but also of immortality for cells, which is extrapolated into
this dream for the entire organism. Obviously, additionally, the idea of
cloning entire beings itself lends itself to recreating oneself over and
again. This takes not into account the nurture aspects where such cloned
progeny would not necessarily BE that individual again.
As to genetic engineering for one’s offspring conceived sexually, one
intriguing issue that came out of this was how do we really know what is
“perfect.” And should we consider how our answers came about. Is it a
too slippery slope to go from the desire to eradicate severe birth
defects to creating a special people. the spectre of eugenics haunts
this scenario. As does our myopic tendencies. It was mentioned how many
of the individuals who have achieved greatness were genetically “flawed”
in some ways. How do we know what mix of supposed defects and
compensatory strengths, & to what degree, make up the truly remarkable
individual? This was succinctly expressed as “what if a gene is bad for
the individual but good for society?” Along these lines, we talked about
how contemporary families tend to be smaller and how parents may feel
more pressure to try to have “the best” quality children ensured, with
quantity reduced.
Professor Huizenga handed out a varied sampling of papers to us
regarding cloning techniques and genetic engineering. We also discussed
various books and films regarding these issues; from The Boys From
Brazil and Gattica to Multiplicity and a book Prof. Huizenga brought
with him: Clone Age, by Lori B. Andrews.
We also discussed the economic aspects of this. Gene patents, dreams of
immortality, uses in medicine, both controversial and more benign and
how crops could be manipulated to respond to only one type of pesticide
that the seed company also holds the monopoly on. We also touched on th
chilling use of tailor made germs in warfare. Even with the present hal
on research into the more significant areas of this science, the
wealthiest individuals will be able to get the technology pushed for
their own uses (and potential abuses) and jump the hurdles of bans and
moritoriums through one venue or another with so much profit to be made.—————————————————————————————-
“It has been observed of sex that the pleasure is fleeting, the
contortions ridiculous, and the expense damnable. If and when we start
making humans by other means, though, we might be surprised to discover
that sex has been preserving us from some very nasty things. That there
is, to put it another way, a very good reason we go to all the trouble.”
excerpted from “Why Courtship Beats Cloning” by Jim Holt; 2/13/98; Dow
Jones article.
“Are the pope and his clone both infallible? What if they disagree about
something?” From a paper handed out by Prof. Huizenga, gleaned from the
web.
