Should Human Cloning Be Legal? by Emily Lauterpacht

In recent years, as technology has advanced, so have our ambitions in how to use it. The first ever clone was created by Hans Adolf Edward Dreisch in 1885, by shaking a sea urchin embryo that was made up of two cells, until they separated, and eventually grew into two separate sea urchins. However, cloning, as we know it today, involves the transfer of the nucleus of one cell into another cell (usually an enucleated egg cell), and the first successful example of this was in 1952, by Robert Briggs and Thomas King. These two men cloned a frog, and found that many attempts at cloning failed. It was also found that some of the clones that did survive grew abnormally. These early difficulties continue to occur regularly, and are amongst the many reasons that the cloning of humans has been so controversial.

Frogspawn

To those who are for human cloning, it represents countless ways that our lives can be improved. It is seen to be a way in which want-to-be parents, who can’t have children, can not only have a child, but have that child be genetically related to them, and in many cases, only them. At the moment, the options for these potential parents are generally limited to adoption, use of a surrogate, in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or artificial insemination, depending on the situation, with the latter two possibly involving sperm and/or egg donors. This means that the child is usually either fully or partly not genetically related to on  or both parents. For many want-to-be parents, these options are far from ideal. The use of human cloning in these situations would mean that couples with fertility problems, or single parents, could have a child that was genetically related to them, and only them, as all of the genetic material only comes from one person, with the potential exception of mitochondrial DNA if the egg used is not that of the person being cloned.

As mentioned earlier, in cloning animals, there have been many issues with growth abnormalities. This has meant that there are very poor survival rates for clones; Dolly the sheep was the only sheep that was born alive out of 277 eggs. Although the statistics have now improved since the time of Dolly’s cloning in 1996, only 2-3 animals survive out of every 100 attempts. However, what worries many people more, is that the animals that do survive to be born have unusually large numbers of deformities. For example, many cloned lambs have breathing problems, as well as enlarged blood vessels (often up to 20 times larger than normal), which put immense amount of stress on the heart. Creating humans who are almost certain to have abnormalities similar to those experienced by cloned animals has huge ethical implications, and is considered the main reason to not legalise human cloning.

Dolly the sheep

Many of those who are for the legalisation of human cloning say that the abnormalities mentioned above can be resolved with practice, and that through learning to successfully clone humans, we will also discover a lot about the ageing process, cell development and cancer. Through developing these areas, we can therefore further our health care abilities. It is also believed that through cloning humans, we could potential use embryonic stem cells from a clone to restore sight, amongst other applications, or we could make brainless clones, which would act as organ donors if the person cloned were ever to need a transplant of any kind.  Were these possible, it would bring yet more ethical issues, which would need to be weighed up against the benefits, which would include no issues of organ rejection, and not having to rely on brain-dead or dead organ donors.

Another issue with human cloning is lack of public understanding. Many members of the public, especially those who feel that human cloning would directly benefit them (for example it may give them the possibly of have a child who is genetically related to them), strongly believe that human cloning should be legal. However, often they do not know all of the facts. For example, while they may be aware of the risk of deformities, they may not realise the potential extent of these, were they able to have a child made by cloning. They therefore blindly battle on, fighting for human cloning, without really knowing what they could get themselves into. Another reason that some people wish to clone humans is so that they may have a dead loved one cloned. Again, this may seem like a lovely idea, but it is predicted that were this to occur, it would have all sorts of detrimental psychological effects, both on the clone, and on the people whose loved one has been cloned. The clone may look like the deceased, but they would have a different personality and different life experiences. Having these feelings and expectations projected onto them as they grow up would likely have negative mental effects on the clone. It would also not bring back the dead, and this is a concept that much of the public, especially when grieving, would likely struggle with. There would also be legal issues with granting permission for the clone to be produced, as clearly, the deceased are unable to consent.

Currently, humans can be cloned if you have a licence, as long as the embryo is destroyed within 14 days, as this is when the nervous system begins to form. The strict laws that regulate this, in my opinion, strike the correct balance in this on going battle between science and ethics. It means that research into, and techniques for cloning are allowed to develop, while not risking the development of foetuses with abnormalities. I strongly believe that it would be wrong to allow the implantations of cloned embryos when there is still such a high risk of serious disabilities – both mental and physical. However, once cloning techniques have been perfected in animals and at these early stages, I believe I will reconsider my stance on the laws on cloning, as these unnecessary and life altering deformities are the part of human cloning that I currently contest.

Emily Lauterpacht