Created in our image

One day soon, human clones will walk among us. Does the thought send a shiver up your spine? How about the notion of eating french fries from a potato engineered with jellyfish genes to make its leaves bioluminescent? We should consider our responses to both issues now, before reality comes knocking at the door. Several groups have announced intentions to clone humans, and the bioluminescence gene has already been successfully incorporated into potato plants.

If those prospects make you squirm, you're not alone. The public's emotional response to the issues of human cloning and biotechnology far outstrips its response to global warming and widespread species extinction. When Dolly the sheep was first cloned by Scottish scientists, political leaders around the world sensed the negative reactions among their constituents and moved to pass legislation banning the new technology in humans. Any new developments in the area stir up fresh controversy, such that the cloning issue is frequently featured on the front page of major newspapers. These articles seem to suggest that apart from a few mad scientists, most everyone agrees that cloning humans is wrong.

But why is it so wrong? Consider the Monitor's quotes from the experts. Professor Chen, vice-president of Beijing University, says about human cloning, "There isn't a controversy. There's no real discussion. We know it's wrong and not natural." John White, who is secretary for science policy at the Australian Academy of Science, is equally willing to speak authoritatively on the issue: "We clearly oppose cloning whole human beings. There are too many troubling ethical and moral issues."

Of course, there are troubling issues that need to be considered. The new technology suffers from several technical challenges, such as a low rate of successful implantation and a low rate of subsequent survival. We certainly wouldn't want cloned children to suffer illnesses caused by imperfect technology. Others voice their concern that parents who employ the techniques to recreate a lost child will place burdensome expectations on the cloned child, who — despite sharing the genes of the lost child — will be a unique person. Indeed, the word "clone" is misleading, since such children will be less similar to the original child than would be an identical twin (the clone will not have shared the same womb at the same time). But do such issues justify an outright ban on human cloning? The technical challenges will soon be overcome with the help of new research, and the education of parents (and other relatives) could certainly help reduce misguided expectations.

Some respond to such an optimistic viewpoint by claiming that there are no true benefits. George Annas — the head of the health-law department at Boston University — claims that "there is no moral justification to clone human beings. If the human species was dying and cloning was the only way to ensure the survival of the species, then sure." But how about individual couples, who are deeply driven to have their own genetic children but unable to do so by other means? Surely the continuation of the human species will be no comfort to them.

In my experience, the most common justification for a negative response to cloning and genetic engineering is that humans don't have the right to "play God" in such a manner. Professor Chen's appeal to the "natural" suggests that he has parallel concerns. Without launching into a diatribe about the naturalistic fallacy, I will simply point out that if the concern is that we should not mess with the creations of God/Nature, we should be much more concerned about other societal problems. It's true that cloning represents a novel means of creating people, but this technology need not harm anyone. So long as clones are accorded the same rights and protections as other people, and their parents are educated regarding appropriate expectations, I cannot see how the clones themselves would be harmed. Just in case others might be prejudiced against such people, the cloning origin could be kept secret. If the clones were not harmed by cloning, then who would be?

There are other instances of humans playing God that do deeply harm many. With global warming and the massive loss of biodiversity, humans are playing God to the extreme and are seriously harming the organisms themselves, as well as existing and future generations of humans. If tinkering with the genes of God/Nature's creations is wrong, then surely the complete extinction of thousands of species — of God/Nature's creation — and the complete transformation of His/Her planet is the ultimate evil. For the sake of consistency and morality, we must get passionate about these issues.

Since Dolly the sheep hit the headlines in 1997, many people think of cloning whenever they think broadly of "ethical issues." Genetic engineering conjures the same reaction for similar reasons. But cloning and genetic engineering are nothing but small moral peanuts in relation to our negligent treatment of the organisms that grace this planet and render it habitable for humanity. Kai M.A. Chan is an ecology and evolutionary biology graduate student from Toronto, Ontario. He can be reached at kaichan@princeton.edu.