Fact Sheet: "Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2012"
Some scientists andgroups have announced that they will try to produce live-born children by
cloning, while others want to create human embryos by cloning solely to destroy
them for their cells and tissues. Such developments have renewed Congress's
interest in the issue.
An irresponsible experiment
Trials in animal cloning indicate that 95% to 99% of the embryos produced by
cloning will die; of those which survive until late in pregnancy, most will be
stillborn or die shortly after birth; and the rest may survive with
unpredictable but devastating health problems. These problems cannot be
detected prenatally, because they are not genetic defects in the usual sense –
they arise not from missing or defective genes, but from the uncoordinated or
disorderly expression of genes. Almost all scientists and ethicists therefore
agree at this time that attempts at human cloning would be grossly unethical.
To clone and kill
Other scientists want to use cloning to make embryos solely for destructive
research – to make large "control groups" to test the effects of
various toxins, for example, or to attempt mass production of genetically
matched stem cells for eventual treatment of disease. They would allow a ban on
what they call "reproductive cloning" (allowing a cloned child to be
born). Such a ban would permit the use of cloning to make countless human
embryos, but would forbid transferring such embryos to a womb for purposes of
live birth. Oddly, to address the problem of a 99% death rate from cloning,
this approach would simply ensure that the death rate is 100% instead. Such a
selective ban would define a class of new human beings that it is a crime not
to destroy. It would also set the stage for "reproductive" cloning in
the future, by giving a green light to the wasteful and destructive embryo
experiments needed to refine the cloning process.
A solution
Congressman Andy Harris, (R-MD) has introduced the "Human Cloning
Prohibition Act of 2012" (H.R. 2164) to address this problem (for text see
https://thomas.loc.gov). Common features of these bills:
- Performing or attempting to perform human cloning will be a federal criminal offense, punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment and (in cases where a violation involves pecuniary gain) a civil penalty of not less than $1,000,000.
- Human cloning is defined as human asexual reproduction, performed by transferring nuclear material from one or more human somatic cells into an oocyte whose nucleus has been removed or inactivated so as to produce a living organism (at any stage of development) that is genetically virtually identical to an existing or previously existing human organism.
- Other scientific research, using cloning techniques to produce molecules, DNA, cells other than human embryos, tissues, organs, plants, or animals other than humans, is explicitly excluded from the scope of the bill.
Questions and answers
What's wrong with human cloning?
Cloning is the ultimate dehumanizing of human reproduction. New human lives are
made in the laboratory, tailored to preset specifications to be mere carriers
of genetic traits that others find useful. Since new life would issue from
manipulation of a body cell rather than from union of sperm and egg, even the
usual meanings of "father" and "mother" would not apply.
This procedure fails to respect the dignity of the resulting child, who has a
right to arise from mother and father as a new and valued person with his or
her own open future.
Why not ban only "reproductive" cloning?
Such a ban does not actually ban cloning. It waits until the cloning procedure
is finished, then forbids live birth of the resulting clones. It would be
highly ineffective even at achieving its own goal – once cloned embryos are
readily available in the laboratory, transfer to wombs is easily done; any
effort to enforce the law once this occurs would require forced abortions,
violating sound moral principles as well as the Constitution. The only
effective way to ban human cloning is to ban use of cloning to initiate the
development of new humans.
Would a complete ban on human cloning interfere with promising medical
research?
No. As an avenue to human treatments, embryonic stem cell research in general
is being superseded by research using stem cells from adult tissue, placentas,
umbilical cord blood, etc. (see www.stemcellresearch.org). Even within the
field of embryo research, the use of cloning to make human embryos for research
(so-called "therapeutic cloning") is falling out of favor, as
alternative means are found for making genetically matched cells and the
wastefulness of the cloning procedure is better understood. PPL Therapeutics,
involved in the creation of "Dolly" the sheep, has announced
discovery of a way to redirect a patient's own body cells to make different
kinds of stem cells without producing a cloned embryo. Even many who support
research using "spare" embryos from fertility clinics have said it is
unconscionable to create human embryos solely for research that will destroy
them. Why choose a more ineffective and legally questionable way to ban
cloning, solely to protect research that is morally abhorrent and of no likely
benefit? The Harris approach is morally and medically reasonable, as
well as more effective in practical and legal terms.