Any attempt to ban human
cloning technology should be rejected permanently, because
cloning—therapeutic and reproductive—is morally
good.
Consider first therapeutic cloning, which opponents perversely
condemn as “anti-life.” Senator Sam Brownback, who
has sponsored a U.S. Congressional ban on all cloning, says therapeutic
cloning is “creating human life to destroy [it].” President
Bush calls it “growing human beings for spare body parts.”
Neither of these is true. In fact, therapeutic cloning is a
highly pro-life technology, since cloned embryos can be used
to extract
medically potent embryonic stem cells. A cloned embryo is created
by inserting the nucleus of a human body cell into a denucleated
egg, which is then induced to divide until it reaches the embryo
stage.
These embryos are not human beings, but microscopic bits of
protoplasm the width of a human hair. They have the potential
to grow into
human beings, but actual human beings are the ones dying for
lack of this technology. The embryonic stem cells extracted from
a cloned embryo can become any other type of human cell. In the
future, they may be used to develop pancreatic cells for curing
diabetes, cardiac muscle cells for curing heart disease, brain
cells for curing Alzheimer’s—or even entire new organs
for transplantation. “There’s not an area of medicine
that this technology will not potentially impact,” says
Nobel laureate Harold Varmus.
Opponents of therapeutic cloning know all this, but are unmoved.
This is because their fundamental objection is not that therapeutic
cloning is anti-life, but that it entails “playing God”—i.e.,
remaking nature to serve human purposes. “[Human cloning]
would be taking a major step into making man himself simply another
one of the man-made things,” says Leon Kass, chairman of
the President’s Council on Bioethics. “Human nature
becomes merely the last part of nature to succumb to the technological
project, which turns all of nature into raw material at human
disposal.”
Columnist Armstrong Williams condemns all cloning as “human
egotism, or the desire to exert our will over every aspect of
our surroundings,” and cautions: “We’re not
God.”
The one truth in the anticloning position is that cloning does
represent “the desire to exert our will over every aspect
of our surroundings.” But such a desire is not immoral—it
is a mark of virtue. Using technology to alter nature is a requirement
of human life. It is what brought man from the cave to civilization.
Where would we be without the men who “exerted their will” over
their surroundings and constructed the first hut, cottage, and
skyscraper? Every advance in human history is part of “the
technological project” and has made man’s life longer,
healthier, and happier. These advances are produced by those
who hold the premise that suffering and disease are a curse,
not to be humbly accepted as “God’s will,” but
to be fought proudly with all the power of man’s rational
mind.
The same virtue applies to reproductive cloning—which,
despite the ridiculous, horror-movie scenarios conjured up by
its opponents, would simply result in time-separated twins just
as human as anyone else. Once it becomes safe, reproductive cloning
will have legitimate uses for infertile couples and for preventing
the transmission of genetic diseases.
Even more important, it is significant as an early form of
a tremendous value: genetic engineering, which most anticloners
object to because as such it entails “playing God” with
the genetic makeup of one’s child. At stake with reproductive
cloning is not only whether you can conceive a child who shares
your genetic makeup, but whether you have the right to improve
the genetic makeup of your children: to prevent them from getting
genetic diseases, to prolong their lifespan, or to improve their
physical appearance. You should have such rights just as you
have the right to vaccinate your children or to fit them with
braces.
The mentalities that denounce cloning and “playing God” have
consistently opposed technological progress, especially in medicine.
They objected to anesthesia, smallpox inoculations, contraception,
heart transplants, in vitro fertilization—on the grounds
that these innovations were “unnatural” and contrary
to God’s will. To let them cripple biotechnological progress
by banning cloning would be a moral abomination.
Alex Epstein is a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute, in Irvine,
Calif., which promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of
Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Send comments to reaction@aynrand.org. |
