Seeing double: cloning will prove beneficial

By Logan Gee

Just months after the release of "Episode II: Attack of the Clones," it seems as though we as a society are facing precisely that kind of attack. Two different sources claim to have produced a human clone. One came from Severino Antinori, a controversial Italian doctor who has been forecasting his creation for over a year. The other came from Clonaid, an international firm connected to a delightfully wacky religious sect known as the Raelians.

While no empirical evidence has emerged to validate either announcement, the idea has rekindled a familiar bioethical debate, one that lies at the crossroads of religion and science: are we allowing the medical community to violate the sanctity of life?

Well, the House of Representatives certainly isn't. Last week a ban on two types of cloning, reproductive and therapeutic, passed by a vote of 241-155. The legislation is soon to go through the Senate, where it is not predicted to pass so easily.

While it is easy to reject all forms of cloning, a closer look at the practice might cause one to reconsider the notion that it involves the unjust destruction of human life. First, the nucleus from an unfertilized egg is extracted. That nucleus is then replaced by the nucleus from an ordinary skin or muscle cell from the same body. A process called reprogramming is then induced with some form of stimulation. An embryo can be fostered from this new cell, and stem cells can be extracted from the embryo. These stem cells can then be used to create tissue that can become an effective tool in battling conditions such as Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's or spinal-cord injuries.

While President Bush opposes all types of cloning, Michael Gazzaniga, a member of Bush's advisory panel on bioethics, does not. He feels it does not destroy a potential life because the lump of cells that is created "has no nervous system and is not sentient in any way. It has no trajectory to becoming a human being."

One interesting thing about the cloning issue is that the line between the proponents and opponents does not fall along the partisan lines. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., said the Feb. 27 vote "sends the wrong message to America's medical research community," but is confident that the Senate vote won't echo this mistake. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who supports therapeutic cloning, says that "a critical feature of being pro-life is helping the living," referring to the numerous medical benefits that therapeutic cloning produces.

Cloning, abortion and stem-cell research all strike a similar chord, begging the question of when a human life truly becomes a human life. And while cloning first seems to the be the most frightful and offensive, we should take a breath before entertaining apocalyptic fantasies about human tissue farms and thousands of Saddam Husseins running around.

In looking at any debate such as this, it is important to remember that scientific enlightenment has often been stifled by irrational moral and religious accusations. Copernicus was called a heretic when he posited that Earth was not the center of the universe. When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution, it caused an outrage among the religious moral majority. But after a long and drawn out struggle, Darwinism has replaced Creationism as the mainstream American standard (turns out that the seven-day week is arbitrary after all).

While it may seem logical to oppose biomedical advances such as cloning on spiritual grounds, time will probably show that the objection is not really meaningful. Many discourage the practice of therapeutic cloning on the grounds that it is "playing God." However, if we are referring to the omnipresent Christian God, wouldn't there be no way to divorce Him from any act of creation?