Research Cloning and "Fetus Farming":
The Slippery Slope in Action

Editor's note. The following article was produced by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. It can be found in its entirety (along with footnotes) at http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/bioethic/cloning/farmfact31805.htm

I. The Current Situation

Some scientists and their political allies support human cloning for research purposes (which they call "therapeutic" cloning, although it has not produced any therapies). They say this practice can be kept totally separate from "reproductive" cloning (using cloned human embryos to initiate pregnancies). However, the cloning procedure is exactly the same in both cases; so many supporters of research cloning admit that allowing it will make reproductive cloning more likely as well. It is doubtful that any ban on reproductive use of cloned embryos would be practical, enforceable, or even upheld by the Supreme Court as constitutionally valid once the mass-production of embryos for research purposes is authorized.

II. "Fetus Farming": An Alarming Development

In recent years this debate has shifted in an alarming direction:

1. With the support of groups favoring research cloning, many states are considering (and some have passed) laws that allow placing cloned human embryos in women's wombs, but forbid any attempt to let them be born alive. Under these laws, researchers can implant cloned human embryos in wombs, develop them to the fetal stage, then abort them for their cells and tissues (a process some call "fetus farming").

2. This legislative trend is based on recent scientific evidence

suggesting that therapeutic benefits will not be safely obtained from the cloning of human embryos unless such "fetus farming" is allowed. So the attempt to distinguish therapeutic from reproductive cloning has broken down: What was once called "reproductive" cloning (placing cloned embryos in a womb) is being accepted as a necessary part of so-called "therapeutic" cloning.

This new agenda has required a shift in definitions. Increasingly, "reproductive" cloning is said to occur only if a cloned human being is brought to full term and born alive. In this way a law can be called a ban on "reproductive" cloning even if its only legal effect is to mandate abortion for any woman carrying a cloned unborn child in her womb.

III. Documentation of This Trend

A. The Legislative Slippery Slope to Fetus Farming

Until recently, groups promoting research cloning, such as the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), supported state and federal bills that prohibit implanting a cloned embryo in a womb. For example, in Congress they supported the "Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act" of 2003 (S. 303). That bill actually allowed the human cloning procedure, calling it "nuclear transplantation," but banned two things: (1) "implanting or attempting to implant the product of nuclear transplantation into a uterus or the functional equivalent of a uterus"; and (2) maintaining such a cloned human embryo for "more than 14 days from its first cell division," not counting time spent in a freezer.

BIO told the President's Council on Bioethics in June 2003 that it supported this 14-day limit - - adding that this may be reconsidered "umpteen years" from now in light of new facts.

Yet months before making these remarks to the President's Council, BIO was urging its state affiliates to help pass laws violating this 14-day limit. The national group recommended a new California law on cloning as a "model" for other states. That law authorizes "research involving the derivation and use of human embryonic stem cells, human embryonic germ cells, and human adult stem cells from any source, including somatic cell nuclear transplantation." California law also bans initiating a pregnancy using a cloned human embryo, but only if that pregnancy "could result in the birth of a human being."

In fact, the same official who presented BIO's testimony to the President's Council on Bioethics had already testified in support of a New Jersey bill with this same broad language. After critics pointed out that the New Jersey bill did not even really ban "reproductive" cloning, the bill's sponsors made its extreme scope even clearer. The final law bans "cloning of a human being," defined as "the replication of a human individual by cultivating a cell with genetic material through the egg, embryo, fetal and newborn stages into a new human individual." Developing the cloned embryo to any point short of this to harvest cells and tissues is allowed, and the governor later decided it could be publicly funded. Only letting the cloned human survive "through" this entire process is prohibited.

In keeping with BIO's new approach, at least nine states considered sweeping "therapeutic cloning" bills in 2002 and 2003, allowing the exploitation and destruction of cloned humans well past the embryonic stage. This approach is now reflected in California's state constitution through voter approval of "Proposition 71" in November 2004:

It rejects "human reproductive cloning," defined as using a cloned embryo to initiate a pregnancy if this is done as part of "the practice of creating or attempting to create a human being" (which seems intended to mean a live-born human being).

But why the shift toward "fetus farming"? The answer lies in recent cloning research.

B. The Researchers' Slippery Slope: The Need for Fetal Organs

The shift in legislation is due to a growing realization that human cloning will probably not produce usable cells and tissues unless cloned humans can be developed past the embryonic stage. Four recent studies are of special importance:

· The first animal study claiming therapeutic benefits from cloning was published in April 2002. It used cells from a cloned mouse embryo to try to reverse an immune deficiency in the original mouse. This effort failed to cure the condition, and showed that even genetically matched embryonic cells from an animal's own clone may be rejected by the animal. The researchers succeeded in curing the disease only when they modified stem cells from the cloned embryo (to correct the original mouse's genetic defect), used these stem cells to create a new embryo, then placed that embryo in a mouse's womb to develop it to the newborn stage. The born mouse's adult stem cells were placed back in the original mouse to reverse the disease.

· In June 2002, researchers at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) in Massachusetts reported on their efforts to use cloning to produce kidney tissue for cows. The effort succeeded only when they placed the cloned cow embryo in a cow's womb, grew it to the fetal stage, then aborted it to obtain developed kidney tissue. The authors pointed out that because this required gestation in a womb, it should not be considered as a model for human "therapeutic cloning."

· In February 2004, ACT reported on its efforts to clone mouse embryos to produce new heart tissue for mice. Once again, usable cells were produced only after the researchers placed the cloned mouse embryos in "surrogate mother" mice, grew them to the late fetal stage (the equivalent of the fifth to sixth month of pregnancy in humans), then aborted them for their heart tissue. This time, however, their report contained no disclaimer about this not being a model for human "therapeutic cloning." Even the fact that the study required fetus farming was made clear only in a data supplement on "materials and methods," quietly posted online after ACT's news release about this "advance" had been issued. Here ACT falsely describes this as a case of "myocardial regeneration obtained with stem cells from cloned embryos." In fact cloned fetuses were grown from cloned embryos, then aborted for their cells.

· A January 2004 study of cloned embryos helps explain these findings. It seems the cloning procedure wreaks havoc in gene expression at the embryonic stage - - that is, all the human genes are present, but the genes do not always "switch on" and express themselves at the right time and in the right order, and this produces many abnormalities. However, there may be a second opportunity to finish "reprogramming" the genes successfully, if one can get the cloned embryo to survive to the fetal stage. This provides a scientific rationale for developing cloned embryos to the fetal stage, to produce more normal cells that are usable in research or therapy.

IV. Conclusion

Cloning supporters in the biotechnology industry are moving on to the next stage of their agenda - - one that requires gestation in the womb to grow and then destroy fetal humans for their body parts. They believe use of human cloning for "therapeutic" purposes may require use of what everyone once called "reproductive" cloning.