Inspired by a discussion with Santi after class, I thought it would be interesting to explore the case of human cloning. in 1969. J.B.S. Haldane first introduced the idea of human cloning, but it wasn’t until 1997 that Ian Wilmut in Edinburgh cloned the first adult mammal, a sheep called Dolly, by transferring the nucleus from a sheep cell into an unfertilised egg with its nucleus removed. This was immediately met with a renewed interest in the possibility of human cloning, and although there was some support for allowing human reproductive cloning either based on the benefits it would bring (as laid out by Lord Robert Winston) or simply its inevitability (as argued by the historian Daniel Kevles), many countries moved quickly to ban the possibility and/or establish a moratorium on research.
Despite practical questions over the feasibility of human cloning and a relatively long period in which some consensus seems to have been established, the potential has started to receive renewed attention in the last year.
In January, the EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin reiterated his call for a global ban on human reproductive cloning. This was at least partly motivated by the strange story of the Raelian cult/company Clonaid, which had claimed the world’s first cloned babies had been born.
Further, in March, MIT Technology Review reported on R3 Bio, which had acknowledged its efforts to raise money to create non-sentient monkey “organ sacks” as an alternative to animal testing. What R3 Bio had not publicised according to Tech Review was that the firm had also pitched the possibility of “brainless clones” to serve the role of backup human bodies.
- Are you comfortable with the idea of human cloning? What role should governments play in regulating cloning?
- Do you see any differences between biological human cloning and a near-future where the combination of advances in robotics and AI could lead to outcomes that pose similar or even more difficult moral and ethical questions?