Human Cloning

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Human Cloning

• Dr. Ray Bohlin
• Probe Ministries
• www.probe.org
• rbohlin_at_probe.org

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If we can clone sheep and mice, can we clone
humans?
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Definition of Personhood

• Biological Criterion (Francis Crick)
• If a child were considered legally born when two
  days old, it could be examined to see whether it
  was an acceptable member of human society

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Definition of Personhood

• Cultural Criterion Ashley Montagu
• A newborn baby is not truly human until he or
  she is molded by cultural influences later.

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Definition of Personhood

• Mental Criterion (Joseph Fletcher)
• Humans without some minimum of intelligence or
  mental capacity are not persons

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Sanctity of Life vs. Quality of Life
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Key Questions

• Who will decide?
• What criteria will we use?
• Will our standard stay permanent?

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Why is cloning so difficult?

• All the cells of your body are differentiated.
  Stomach cells, brain cells, liver cells, muscle
  cells never change into something else.

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Why is cloning so difficult?

• But the DNA in all cells of your body is the
  same. The instructions to make you over again are
  present in each of your cells.

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Why is cloning so difficult?

• But in brain cells, for instance, only those
  genes needed for brain cell function are turned
  on. Everything else is switched off.
• It was a mystery as to how to turn all those
  genes on again to form a new organism

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Why is cloning so difficult?

• Cloning frogs was mildly successful in the 60s
  and 70s
• But attempts in the early 1980s to clone sheep,
  cows and mice were unsuccessful despite one
  dubious report of success with mice.
• The cloning of mammals, by simple nuclear
  transfer, is impossible. Davor Solter, SCIENCE,
  Dec. 1984

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Cloning Dolly
starved
fusewith
Mammary gland cell
enucleated egg
potential embryo
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Scientific Issues - Sheep

• Inefficient - 277 fusions, 1 lamb
• How long will Dolly live?
• Will Dolly be fertile? Yes!
• Other clones are large and fragile with subtle
  genetic abnormalities
• Some questioned Dollys authenticity but this was
  answered recently.

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How were mice cloned?
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How were mice cloned?
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Cloned mice
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Scientific Issues - Mice

• Success rate is 2-3 compared to 0.3 for Dolly.
• Attempts to clone neuronal and testicular cells
  were unsuccessful.
• Successive generations were cloned.
• Technique more applicable to humans.

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Why Clone Animals?

• Sheep are being cloned to reproduce genetically
  engineered sheep. These sheep are engineered to
  mass produce human proteins in their milk.

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Why Clone Humans?

• Doug Dorner, sterile because of leukemia
  treatment at age 16 The more he read the more
  excited he got. Technology saved my life when I
  was 16, he says, but at the cost of his
  fertility. I think technology should help me
  have a kid. Thats a fair trade. Time,
  2/19/2001, p. 51

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Why Clone Humans?

• Randolphe Wicker, 63 I can thumb my nose at
  Mr. Death and say, You might get me, but youre
  not going to get all of me, he says. The
  special formula that is me will live on into
  another lifetime. Its a partial triumph over
  death. I would leave my imprint not in sand, but
  in cement.

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Why Clone Humans?

• Jack Barker, Minneapolis marketing specialist,
  36, says, Ive come to the conclusion that I
  dont need a partner but can still have a child,
  he says. A clone would be the perfect child to
  have because I know exactly what Im getting.
•  
• Cloning, he hopes, might even let him improve on
  the original I have had bad allergies and
  asthma. It would be nice to have a kid like you
  but with those improvements. p. 55.

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Why Clone Humans?
Source of organs for transplants Christie and
Travis Silva
Same sex couples Christine DeShazo Michele Thomas
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Why Clone Humans?

• Why not? Were just another animal species?
• Children for childless couples

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Why Clone Humans?

• We can learn a great deal about human embryology

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Why Clone Humans?

• Some have suggested that cloning could replace a
  deceased child

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Why Clone Humans?

• Clones could be a source of rejection-free organ
  transplants

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Why Clone Humans?

• Cloning could create extra copies of desirous
  individuals

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What is Life?

• There is no clear-cut definition for what is
  life. And this is something, I think, that
  society is going to have to think about, is going
  to have to make some definitions. And those
  definitions may not be permanent, they may change
  as new technologies are developed. There is a
  fine line, and the line, at the early stages, is
  really based on your intentions of what they are
  to be used for as opposed to necessarily what
  they are.

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What is Life?

• So the question of what is life seems to change,
  I think, in peoples minds based on what their
  concerns are or their own interests are in how we
  might use whatever it is we are producing.
• James Robl, Quoted in The Cloning Revolution,
  Films for the Humanities and Sciences (1998)

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Biblical Principles

• Genesis 126-28
• Created in Gods Image
• Therefore we are distinct from the animals
• Stewardship
• Exhortation to be fruitful and multiply

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Naturalistic/Evolutionary Principles

• An organisms sole purpose is to survive and
  reproduce
• We are just another animal species
• The species persists through time

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The Ethics of Cloning

• Usefulness of animal cloning
• Distinction between animals and humans
• Wastefulness of experimental process
• Cloned expectations
• Mythical reproductive rights

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Usefulness of Animal Cloning

• Reproducing genetically engineered animals to
  harvest them for pharmaceuticals and organs for
  transplant.
• Preserve endangered species

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Usefulness of Animal Cloning

• Resurrecting extinct animals?
• NOT!!

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Violation of Human Dignity

• Distinctions between man and animals
• Child becomes a thing to be designed, sold and
  marketed

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Human Experimentation

• No matter how much animal experimentation is
  done, human embryos will be sacrificed

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Cloned Expectations

• People cloned for certain traits will have high
  expectations
• Clones are identical twins, not parent and child

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Summary

• Tremendous waste of human life at embryonic
  stages.
• Degradation of human dignity - humans
  designed/created for purposes other than
  procreation.
• Dangerous family situations
• Unwise personal expectations
• Beneficial research goals achievable by other
  means.

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The drive toward human cloning is being powered
by a selfish mythical right to total reproductive
freedom and further fueled by a profound lack of
moral courage on the part of science and society.
We are unwilling to say that there are some
experiments we will not perform.
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Biblical Clones?

• Rebecca a thirtysomething San Francisco Bay
  Area resident, spent seven years trying to
  conceive a child with her husband. Having been
  to hell and back with IVF treatment, Rebecca is
  now as thoroughly committed to cloning as she is
  to Christianity. Its in the Bible be fruitful
  and multiply, she says.

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Biblical Clones?

• People say, Youre playing God. But were not.
  Were using the raw materials the good Lord gave
  us. What does the doctor do when the heart has
  stopped? They have to do direct massage of the
  heart. You could say the doctor is playing God.
  But we save a life. With human cloning, were not
  so much saving a life as creating a new being by
  manipulation of the raw materials, DNA, the
  blueprint of life. Youre simply using it in a
  more creative manner.

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Questions about Cloning

• Will Clones be unique individuals?
• Does a clone have to start as a baby?
• Will cloning affect genetic diversity?
• Can homosexuals use cloning to have children?
• Will clones have a soul?