Human Cloning

FreeRepublic ^ | 4/24/2003 | Marvin Galloway

[MHGinTN]

Cloning, defined according to STEADMAN’S MEDICAL DICTIONARY, 24th edition, page 289, is: “The transplantation of a nucleus from a somatic cell to an ovum, which then develops into an embryo; many identical embryos could thus be reproduced by asexual reproduction.”

Higher mammal cloning attempts have been costly and difficult, however, human cloning does represent a challenge that has never been faced before by society, and this challenge needs truthful airing, before the science is applied broadly for any and all medical marvels which may be implied from the techniques. The term ‘cloning’ may also be used to identify the process whereby only molecules are reproduced, such as DNA, as when criminologists replicate the DNA of a victim or a criminal, for molecular matching purposes; or used to describe research biologists reproducing a nearly limitless supply of a specially engineered micro-organism.

Michael Shermer, writing in his column, ‘Skeptic’, in the April 2003 edition of Scientific American magazine, offers Three Laws of Cloning: 1. A human clone is a human being no less unique in his or her personhood than an identical twin; 2. A human clone has all the rights and privileges that accompany this legal and moral status; 3. A human clone is to be accorded the dignity and respect due any member of our species.

Hold on now! Isn’t the cart before the horse? … Mister Shermer’s three laws don’t address the ‘when’ in a clone’s assumption of rights. When is the clone to be considered an individual human so that the laws can be applied from that day forward? The answer to that question may be both a scientific as well as a moral question, but our modern society is not ready to address those questions until the full truth about human cloning is revealed.

Is human life a commodity to be experimented with?

Some uses of cloning are actually cannibalism dressed up to seem like enlightened medical advances. Isn’t conceiving ‘designer’ individual humans, then killing those individuals to get their body parts for medical treatments, in actuality cannibalism?

It’s not a stretch to say that the acceptance of in vitro fertilization has propelled us down the slippery slope of dehumanizing the earliest age in the continuum of individual human beings, manipulating the amazing processes of conception and life support in order to assist in pregnancy. This earlier medical marvel often creates ‘extra individual embryonic human lives’ to be discarded, or worse, used for experimentation. Should we deconstruct such a beautiful gift by taking full technological advantage of it? Scientists involved with cloning share different viewpoints about this god-like ability we’ve developed. Many find it highly unethical, while others find moralizing the sanctity of individual human life to be only amusing.

Robert Gilmore McKinnell, a professor of genetics and cell biology, wrote that, ‘’Scientists use the cloning procedure to gain insight into biological phenomena such as differentiation, cancer, immunobiology, and aging.” [So far, so good, but the genie is not so benign when the issue of human ‘therapeutic’ cloning arises.]

The life level of that which is cloned is important to understand: a whole organism may be cloned, or only the DNA found in a part of the organism may be cloned.

With DNA cloning, the tissues need not be alive in order to harvest and replicate, or clone, the DNA of the tissue. Such molecular level cloning (called PCR) does not clone an individual (the whole organism), merely the molecular identification of the individual organism. Put another way, the term ‘cloning’ can be used to describe replicating the DNA of alive or dead tissue being tested, as with techniques used in criminology.

When criminologists do DNA replication, they are reproducing a nearly unlimited supply of the exact DNA within the tissue found at the crime scene, in order to match that DNA to the DNA of a criminal or a victim, or exonerate an accused. When Laci Peterson’s body and the body of baby Connor (found in the same waters) were tested with DNA marker technology, the goal was to discover a close DNA identification between Laci Peterson’s body, the body of the baby, and Scott Peterson’s DNA, to connect them through DNA matches, for criminal inferences.

Cloning of bacteria and fungi is used to identify characteristics of the microorganism, to amplify good characteristics or eliminate bad characteristics produced by the DNA commands on the organism’s growth and development. DNA replication and testing can identify what about a microorganism gives that particular organism the disease causing power it has in humans, in order to devise treatments for the diseases.

In modern Embryology textbooks, you will discover that the first principle of the Science of Embryology is that ‘every individual life is a continuum of unbroken processes whereby an individual alive organism is expressing its life, and that continuum has a beginning, a starting point that is that individual’s conception.’

Manipulations such as in vitro fertilization, somatic cell nuclear transfer (cloning), embryonic stem cell research, amniocentesis, and tests for genetic anomalies like Downs Syndrome, all are based upon this ‘first principle’ of Embryology. For these processes to have meaning, first the scientists and technicians must hold that the processes are dealing with an already alive individual’s characteristics, else the tests would be too non-specific to form medical assumptions regarding the alive individual organism tested.

Human whole organism cloning is accomplished by ‘somatic cell nuclear transfer’, taking a living cell from a donor human, removing the nuclear material--the DNA/genes--and inserting that nuclear material into an ‘enucleated’ (nuclear material removed) female gamete, or sex cell, ovum, then zapping that combination with an electrical charge that stimulates cellular replication, expressing an individual human organism. The female ovum from which the 23 chromosome nuclear material has been removed, receives the 46 chromosome nuclear material for a ‘complete human organism’, thus the newly conceived individual life has the theoretical ability to then go through the entire series of cellular divisions (mitosis) which give rise to the amniotic sac and the growing individual human body, complete with all the normal organs and tissues.

‘Reproductive cloning’ conceives via somatic cell nuclear transfer and sustains that individual being all the way to 40 week developmental age and birth.

So called ‘therapeutic cloning’ utilizes in vitro conception and growth of an individual human being, but the new individual will not be allowed to live and grow to the full 40 weeks and be born. Instead, the newly conceived individuals will be killed and their body parts--from cells to organs--will be harvested for use in treating diseases of or injuries to older individual humans (older than embryos). In truth, both ‘types’ of cloning are reproductive, but the end use of the newly conceived individual human determines which name to give the process.

Will individual human life continue to have sanctity or be reduced to mere utility?

Perhaps some believe it isn’t so wrong to conceive embryos and kill them for their body parts, their stem cells, but the processes will not stop there, with that level of cannibalism. There is ongoing effort--well underway--to build an artificial womb, and then conceive and gestate an individual alive human being all the way to the full 40 weeks of development and birth. This marvel will also allow the scientists to stop at any age along the continuum of the lifetime begun at conception and harvest the individual’s body parts … and it will be the owner of the conceived individual and the life supporting machinery that will determine when to kill and harvest, or support for birth!

Why is human cloning bad? … There are many reasons cited by opponents, but it is wrong primarily because the manipulation of individual humans in their earliest age as individual embryonic beings is dehumanizing … dehumanizing for the individuals so conceived for their utility and dehumanizing for the society, which embraces such cannibalism.

The moral ‘line in the sand’ ought to be determined by whether an individual human being is maimed, killed, or discarded in the process of manipulating that individual human lifetime begun at conception. Answer to that question is what our society is not being given in the current debates. And when some portion of the truth regarding these manipulative processes arises, the deeper truth--that even the embryo is an individual human being at its earliest age along its unique continuum of life--is obfuscated, dismissed, ignored, or denied.

Science may one day be able to reproduce a part of the whole organism, as in growing only a kidney that is a perfect tissue match for the individual from whom the genetic nuclear material is taken; that would be an embraceable medical miracle. But as it’s now undertaken, with ‘therapeutic cloning’, an alive individual being very closely matched genetically to the donor of the nuclear material is given life support until the organs of that individual (embryonic stem cells are the organs of the embryo) differentiate sufficiently to be harvested for use with an older individual being treated for a disease or injury. That is, in all truth, cannibalism as surely as if the medical personnel instructed the person being treated to eat the parts taken from the clone in order to treat the disease or injury.

[ To cannibalize, according to NEW WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY, is : to repair (vehicles or aircraft) by using parts from other vehicles, instead of using spare parts.]

Are humans now to be reduced to the utility of aircraft or vehicles, to be cannibalized for their living parts?

[MHGinTN]

PING

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping.

[RS]

Did a search for "vaccines from aborted fetus" and it popped up pretty quick. Mostly religious anti-abortion sites. Didn't think to save the ones that gave good info, but it should't be too hard to locate.
Interesting that you brought up "cadaver pituitaries" since these fetuses were cadavers when the cells were removed also.

[MHGinTN]

The cadavers from whom the growth hormone was taken were all adults. Don't try to read something into what I post. I'm usually very plain and transparent with my offerings. If you have a question, be brave and ask it, else don't try to play games with what I post. Gotcha games are frowned upon at FR.

[MHGinTN]

BTTT

[RS]

"The cadavers from whom the growth hormone was taken were all adults."

Adult or fetus, my point was that they were both dead for reasons other then to harvest the needed parts, therefore there is no tie in either case to any objection to cloning.
( which appears to be the focus of this thread )

[MHGinTN]

Actually, there is a connection, unless you want to assert that the cloning techniques designed for 'therapeutic cloning' will not harvest the conceived clone's parts and in so doing kill the clone. You know the design is to do just that.

[RS]

Let me ask you... is a fertilized egg in a dish a fetus ?

[MHGinTN]

Stop trying to play gotcha, RS. There is no such reality as an egg, once fertilization has occurred. The conceptus (which is the actual reality of the fertilized) is an EMBRYO in earliest age of a lifetime begun, albeit in a dish not in a host body.

[MHGinTN]

BTTT

[MHGinTN]

Ping

[MHGinTN]

Ping

[CJ Wolf]

"I always thought this was funny - like a peanut sized lung would help someone who smoked too much..." Yeah but maybe like ten of them little sacks might work. Plus you could plan ahead, (no pun intended) when you start smoking you could start a clone give it a lobodmy, feed it like cattle and chickens and after 20 years you got a new lung. you could even start a farm, with little pens for them to run around in and jump. Maybe brain transplant is the way to go, why get a new lung when you can get a new fully compatible body.

[MHGinTN]

Now that I've stopped laughing ... thanks, I needed that!

[syriacus]

Thanks for the ping. This was a well-written article (which I am bookmarking).

[syriacus]

There is no such reality as an egg, once fertilization has occurred. The conceptus (which is the actual reality of the fertilized) is an EMBRYO in earliest age of a lifetime begun, albeit in a dish not in a host body.

Bears repeating, and needs repeating.

You'd think the difference between an egg and an embryo would be clear as a bell. But, pro-choicers love to confuse the distinction, especially those scientists who have an interest in creating a human life for the purpose of destroying it. They will be the first to jump on pro-lifers who don't have tiny facts close at hand, but they, themselves, have constructed an entirely unrealistic overview of conception.

As I wrote in another thread, even intelligent, renowned scientific writers are guilty of espousing this unbelievably shoddy thinking when it serves their purposes.

I really get mad when people who want to mold opinions say that apples are oranges. They try to win an argument, that they are afraid they will lose, by changing definitions.

[general_re]

I really get mad when people who want to mold opinions say that apples are oranges.

Like when an unfertilized egg is suddenly defined as an "embryo"?

Sorry, couldn't resist ;)

[MHGinTN]

The scientists doing the deeds call the individual live EMBRYOS. THESE EMBRYOS are evidencing mitosis and differentiation. They are alive individaul beings at embryo age, despite your efforts to obfuscate that.

[general_re]

I think we can manage to disagree without labeling it "obfuscation" - I could as easily say the same thing about someone who wants to cloud the issue by obfuscating the fact that an unfertilized egg isn't an embryo by any accepted defintion ;)