By Richard M. Doerflinger
The struggle between unlimited harmful experimentation
conducted on unborn children and pro-life principles has clearly been on
display during our nation's contentious debates over fetal tissue transplants
and embryo research. After a momentary lull, that struggle has revived,
as state and federal legislators try to clarify the status and rights of
human embryos produced by cloning.
A year ago, researchers in Scotland startled the scientific world by announcing
that they had produced a sheep by completely asexual reproduction. They
had transferred the nucleus from an adult sheep's body cell into an egg
whose nucleus had been removed. The resulting cell was activated to develop
as a new sheep named "Dolly."
Opinion polls showed widespread opposition to any use of this technique
in humans. This opposition has presented a problem for some biotechnology
and pharmaceutical companies, who see cloning as a way to produce potentially
unlimited numbers of genetically controlled human embryos for destructive
experiments.
The devilishly clever solution to this problem has been to support a "ban"
on human cloning - - while redefining what such a ban would mean. This approach
- - reflected in proposals by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission
and by Senators Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.)
- - would actually allow unlimited production of human embryos by cloning,
but would ban the gestation or live birth of these embryos.
The phony "ban" would allow human embryos to be produced by cloning
so long as they were created solely for research and destruction.
In effect, it would define cloned humans as a class of human life that it
is a crime not to destroy.
The idea of deliberately creating human embryos for research purposes and
then destroying them is not new. Pro-abortion scientists and ethicists have
proposed it before. Such experiments were proposed for federal funding by
the National Institutes of Health's Human Embryo Research Panel in 1994.
But the panel's recommendation was widely condemned, and even rejected
by President Clinton, because it so obviously treated human life as a mere
object for manipulation. Now the idea is back, but with broader political
appeal. It is offered in the guise of a ban on "human cloning,"
when in truth it is a ban on letting human clones be born alive.
This ploy has been successful enough in Congress that for months it has
blocked all genuine efforts to ban human cloning. Genuine bans have been
tagged by the biotechnology industry as attacks on "legitimate medical
research" (because they would not allow the use of cloning to create
human embryos for destructive experiments).
The biotechnology groups' fake ban has come forward as a "moderate"
alternative - - even though it would actually give the government's blessing
to destructive experiments that are widely condemned when they involve human
embryos from any other source.
This deception is also being tried in many state legislatures, but with
only mixed success. Some state legislators are getting wise to the games
played by the unprincipled sectors of the biotechnology industry.
A case in point is Pennsylvania, a pro-life state with one of the nation's
strongest laws regulating abortion. At an April 2 hearing before a subcommittee
of the state's House Judiciary Committee, the biotechnology industry again
testified in favor of its phony "ban" on human cloning as it had
before Congress. But this time, pro-life legislators were ready.
Speaking for the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Association was Jeff Davidson,
who praised Pennsylvania as "one of the leading states in the nation
and one of the leading regions in the world" in biotechnology. He warned
that this leadership in research could be destroyed by legislation "unintentionally
prohibiting potentially useful research." But he assured the subcommittee
that his industry does not support "using these technologies to create
entire human beings." His message was seconded by Peter Johnson
of the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative, who also spoke against
use of cloning to make "a whole human being."
Problems arose when the legislators, quite understandably, asked these gentlemen
to define their terms. Suddenly the biotechnology representatives began
contradicting themselves and looking very uncomfortable.
Asked whether the research he wants to protect would involve producing
human embryos by cloning, Mr. Johnson said his work in tissue engineering
"completely bypasses the development of an embryo." He said a
ban should allow for uses of cloning technology that do not involve creating
"a whole embryo."
But when a legislator took him at his word and offered to ban the cloning
of human embryos for research purposes, Johnson objected. Such a ban, he
said, would prohibit scientists from studying how an embryo eventually develops
into "a whole organism."
This apparent effort to distinguish among an "embryo," a "whole
embryo," and a "whole organism" was confusing enough. But
the plot thickened when another subcommittee member cited a thoroughly chilling
column by Charles Krauthammer (see "Of Headless Mice...and Men,"
TIME Magazine, Jan. 19, 1998, p. 76). The column warns against some
researchers' interest in creating "headless" or "brainless"
human clones to serve as "organ farms," supplying genetically
matched spare parts for other humans. The legislator warned that a ban addressing
only the use of cloning to create "whole" or "entire"
human beings could allow for such horrors.
Yet neither witness could explain why his language would not allow
such a practice - - and neither could define what he really meant by a "whole"
or "entire" human being. Finally, Mr. Johnson tried to reassure
the legislator that a human lacking an upper brain, like an anencephalic
child, has no possibility of a human "soul." The effect was to
convince the legislators that destructive research on some kinds of human
beings were indeed being contemplated.
Testifying later at the same hearing on behalf of the Pennsylvania Catholic
Conference, I was able to make three points:
1. There is no such thing as an act of "cloning an entire human being"
if by "entire human being" you mean a live-born infant. Human
cloning produces a human embryo. If you ban allowing a cloned embryo to
reach some later stage of development, that is not a ban on cloning - -
it is a government mandate for killing the embryo that has been created.
A pro-life state like Pennsylvania would not want to engage in such mandated
destruction, which is the moral equivalent of coerced abortion.
2. In fact, Pennsylvania has already made its policy choice in this regard.
As part of its abortion statutes, Pennsylvania has long treated any nontherapeutic
experimentation on human embryos as a third-degree felony. (That same provision
defines the embryo, even at the one-celled stage, as a whole "organism
of the species homo sapiens." So the assumptions behind the
two biotechnology witnesses' confused testimony are wrong as a matter of
law.) To be consistent at all, the state must extend the same respect and
protection to human embryos produced by cloning.
3. It is especially interesting that the two biotechnology witnesses praised
Pennsylvania as a leader in biotechnology research. The state acquired that
status at a time when it banned all harmful experimentation on human embryos
as a crime. This shows that immoral experiments on embryos are not necessary
to great advances in medical research. Pennsylvania will surely retain its
leadership status when it protects cloned embryos from such manipulation
as well.
It is too early to tell whether a genuine ban on human cloning will be enacted
in Pennsylvania or any other state this year. But efforts are underway to
make sure that fake "bans" which really offer a green light to
destructive embryo experiments will be exposed for what they are.
Cloning must not be used to produce a new generation of human embryos with
the status of laboratory mice, created solely to be destroyed. The debate
on this new way to exploit human beings has just begun.
Mr. Doerflinger is associate director for policy development at the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.