Send In The Clones- Don't Bother, They're Here

Jeff Justus May 18, 2001

Infertility is a big issue today. Many couples find themselves healthy, financially sound, and ready to start a family, but nature seems uncooperative in producing offspring. They seem to have all the parts; she has the viable eggs, he has viable sperm. These couples are trying everything, from hormone therapy to highly specialized and expensive procedures including invitro fertilization (IVF), gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT), and intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

All these expensive treatments and fancy words leave childless couples frustrated and depressed every time they see a sixteen year old girl with children, or that family that can’t seem to stop having kids. "Why can’t we have kids?" or "What’s wrong with us?" are the inevitable questions. Even questions like: "Why doesn’t God want us to have kids?" and "Is God punishing us for something?"

Enter Dr. Panayiotis M. Zavos, professor of reproductive physiology at the University of Kentucky and Dr. Severino Antinori, an Italian researcher. Dr. Zavos has been assisting infertile couples for many years and Dr. Antinori "has already pushed the boundaries of fertility treatment."¹

These two scientists are teaming up to develop cloning as an option to the infertility problem. Cloning however, does not represent an inexpensive alternative.

In normal reproduction, the female will provide an ovum (or egg) and the male will provide sperm. All cells in the body contain chromosomes of a certain number—called a diploid. Reproductive cells, ovum and sperm, only contain half the number of chromosomes and are called a haploid. The diploid contains a full DNA strand. During fertilization, the two haploids (one from the male and one from the female) combine to form a diploid, and thus a full DNA string that is a unique combination of the two parent DNAs.

Assisted Reproductive Treatments

In assisted reproductive treatments, physicians will use chemical, hormonal, and minor surgical procedures to assist in the successful fertilization of an egg by sperm. This treatment can also last into the gestation period to ensure that conditions are favorable for the continued viability of the fetus.

In cloning, you start with an egg. This can be from the intended mother, or any other donor female. From the donor egg, remove the haploid chromosome, then insert the diploid from the intended parent. Next, introduce an electrical current to the egg. Implant the clone egg into the uterus and hope it grows into the intended person.

The good news is that it can work. It has been proven to work in Dolly, the sheep.

But let us not forget Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. While Dr. Frankenstein had all the parts in place and supposedly generated life, his creation ended up being a hideous monster.

The story of Frankenstein is fiction, I understand; however, the lesson is real. Cloning is an inexact science. In fact it is so bad that "many cloning efforts produce flawed embryos."² This quote raises several questions. Let’s take a closer look.

The very scientists who want to try human cloning admit that there will be flawed embryos. So what exactly does "flawed embryos" mean? It means grotesque deformities or nonviable embryos.

This begs the question: "What do you do with those ‘flawed embryos?’" The scientific answer is, you examine what went wrong, discard, and try again.

And lastly, what does "many" mean? Let me give you some statistics. For Dolly, the sheep, 277 initial eggs were implanted for one viable, healthy sheep.²

Now let’s put that in human terms: 276 embryos will be created that will not survive, but only one embryo will produce a healthy child. Some of those non-surviving embryos die naturally. Some are terminated (aborted) because of obvious, severe physiological problems.

In the world of infertility treatment, there are drugs like Clomid that increase the release of eggs during the ovulation cycle. This can result in multiple fertilized eggs. In many cases, this is the culprit in quadruplet, quintuplet, sextuplet (and so forth) births. Doctors can, however, perform a procedure euphemistically called "selective reduction," in which embryos that are considered less healthy or prone to physiological problems are aborted.

While it may be easy to selectively reduce multiple embryos or to discard "flawed embryos," could you look a child in the face and say "You’re not right, I’m going to kill you and start over"?

The subtle difference between the elimination of excess embryos produced by assisted reproduction treatments (ART) and the disposal of cloned embryos is this: we know the certainty of the ratio of "flawed embryos" to viable embryos in cloning attempts. In conventional assisted reproductive treatments, the production of excess or flawed embryos is relatively uncommon.

Now, I don’t draw this distinction to grant sanction to either method of abortion or to condemn assisted reproductive treatments. However, if we know that cloning is certain to produce this ratio of aborted fetuses, then we should categorically oppose human cloning.

There are still other moral issues about cloning. Cloning is asexual—since the egg is implanted with DNA rather than fertilized with sperm, it can be done without the involvement of a man. This means that a single woman could have one of her eggs injected with her complete DNA to produce a child. A crucial difference between cloning and assisted reproductive treatments is that in assisted reproductive treatments, the objective is to fertilize an egg and assist the natural reproductive effort. In cloning, the natural order of combining chromosomes of two parents to form a child is replaced by the mechanical process of "creating" a child. How does this affect God’s purpose for human sexuality and reproduction?

Next, if a clone is an identical counterpart of a human, does it then have a distinctive soul from the DNA donor?

Finally, if we consider those 276 aborted fetuses so lightly, could it then be easy enough to produce clones to harvest organs for transplant (at the cost of the life of the clone)? Since the donor-clone DNA is identical to the recipient, there would be nearly minimal chance of rejection. But is it ethical? Since the clone is technically identical to the donor, does that make the clone the property of the donor? Let’s say an individual wants to remove unwanted tissue by liposuction. Nobody would deny the individual’s right to do so. But, does an individual have the right to use and/or discard any tissue of the clone?

I think your stand on the issue of cloning will most likely be decided by your stand on evolution. At least, that’s my observation. Those who buy into evolution usually support cloning and don’t seem to be bothered by abortion. Those who believe in God’s ordered creation are more likely to oppose human cloning and all the ethical questions that it raises.

But, amid all this controversy, human cloning is legal in the United States. Let me encourage you to contact your congressmen and senators to express your views regarding this subject.