Human Cloning Issues

1. Human Cloning
World Issues 120
Mr. Denton

2. Whose Life is it?
On June 23, 2018 Jean Trueblood celebrated her seventeenth
birthday. Her summer activities include preparing for her freshman
year at Central State University. Due to the influence of several
inspiring high school science teachers, she is seriously considering
biology as her major in college. She is fascinated by what she has
learned so far about the amazing scientific and medical advances
made possible by powerful new biotechnologies. For her final paper
in her advanced "Current Issues in Biology" course she chose to
write about the ethical implications of cloning, not knowing that this
topic was about to have a direct impact on her own life.
Just one week after her birthday Jean's plans for a carefree summer
were shattered by a letter received by her parents. The letter was
from Dr. Cynthia Hayes who had won the Nobel Prize for
groundbreaking research on the cloning of mammals. Dr. Hayes'
successful research on the cloning of chimpanzees had been funded
by a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

3. As Jean's parents knew, Dr. Hayes had secretly used some of the
funds to apply her new technique to the cloning of a human being.
That human being was Dr. Hayes, herself. She was motivated by
the fact that she had developed a chronic infection in both of her
kidneys that might eventually require a kidney transplant. She knew
that she had some rare blood and cell characteristics that would
make it hard for her to find a matching kidney donor. With the aid
of a close friend who was medical technician in Central State
Medical Center's Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Dr.
Hayes was able to obtain 10 human eggs removed from the ovary
of a research volunteer. Then, using her new method, she was able
to get four of these eggs to begin to grow into clones of herself by
removing the original eggs' nuclei and inserting nuclei from her own
cells. All of the successful clones were then frozen in liquid nitrogen
in the early blastula stage.

4.  With the aid of another friend who worked for a clinic for
women seeking assistance in becoming pregnant, Dr.
Hayes was able to locate a woman who was seeking an
embryo implant after she had failed to become pregnant
by any other means. That woman was Jean's mother,
Valerie Trueblood.
 Dr. Hayes offered Jean's parents a very financially
attractive deal. They could save the usual $60,000 cost
of an embryo implant if they agreed to accept one of Dr.
Hayes' cloned embryos and signed an agreement. The
terms of the agreement caused the Trueblood’s to
hesitate. It required the clone of Dr. Hayes that would
be born to Valerie Trueblood to agree to donate one of
her kidneys to Dr. Hayes should she require a transplant
any time during her life.

5.  To persuade the Truebloods to accept this unusual and troubling
requirement, Dr. Hayes agreed to create a $100,000 trust fund that
the Truebloods could use toward the expenses of raising and
educating her clone. After Dr. Hayes assured them that there was
less than a 50% chance that she would ever need a kidney
transplant, the Trueboods signed the agreement. A little less than
nine months later Jean was born.
The letter the Truebloods received from Dr. Hayes informed them
that she was now in desperate need of a kidney transplant and that
they should have Jean immediately "volunteer" for the tests that
would determine that her kidney exactly matched Dr. Hayes'
unusual tissue-typing requirements. All of this came as quite a
shock to Jean who had never been informed by her parents about
her biological origins or the existence of the contract they had
signed.

6. Whose Life is it?
Questions:
1. Dr. Hayes did not reveal her decision to clone herself in addition to
the chimpanzees because she knew that the National Institutes of
Health would not approve. Why might the government agency
object to cloning humans, although it approved of cloning
monkeys? Do you approve of the cloning of (a) plants, (b) mice (c)
monkeys (d) humans? Why or why not?
2. Do you think that Dr Hayes' was justified in secretly cloning herself
because of her kidney condition?
3. Do you think that the Trueblood’s decision to accept Dr.Hayes'
terms for the embryo implant was ethically justified?

7. 4. Should the Truebloods have told Jean about her biological heritage
and about the terms of the agreement they signed? If so, at what
age should she have learned these facts?
5. Is Jean obligated to honour the terms of the agreement?
6. Should the fact that Jean's upbringing and education have been
partly paid for by Dr. Hayes have any influence on the decision?
7. If one identical twin needs a kidney transplant due to a condition
not related to heredity, should the other twin feel obligated to
donate one of his/her kidneys for a transplant operation? Would
the situation be different if one of the twins needed a liver
transplant?

8. Human Cloning
 1997 – Scottish scientists led by Ian Wilmut
created a cloned sheep named Dolly.
 2003 – Clonaid, a company linked the Raelians,
a Quebec-based religious group – claims to have
produced the world's first human clone.
– Eve, a baby girl born Dec. 26, supposedly is a genetic
clone of her 31-year-old American mother.

9. Cloning Dangerous?
 Critics say cloning is still a dangerous
technology that can cause serious defects
in the clones.
– The low success rates of cloning efforts of
about 3 percent have also raised questions
about the morality of cloning a human.

10. How Does Cloning Work?
 Somatic cell nuclear transfer
– the same procedure that was used to create
Dolly the sheep.
 SCNT begins when doctors take the egg
from a donor and remove the nucleus of
the egg, creating an enucleated egg.
 A cell, which contains DNA, is then taken
from the person who is being cloned.

11.  The enucleated egg is then fused together with
the cloning subject's cell using electricity. This
creates an embryo, which is implanted into a
surrogate mother through in vitro fertilization.
 If the procedure is successful, then the
surrogate mother will give birth to a baby that is
a clone of the cloning subject at the end of a
normal gestation period.
 The success rate is only about two or three out
of 100 embryos. It took 277 attempts to create
Dolly.

13. The Ethical Debate over Cloning
"Some will hate it, some will love it, but
biotechnology is inevitably leading to a world
in which plants, animals and human beings
are going to be partly man-made….Suppose
parents could add 30 points to their children's
IQ. Wouldn't you want to do it? And if you
don't, your child will be the stupidest child in
the neighborhood."
-Lester Thurow, professor of Economics and Management at the
University of Massachusetts

14. To Clone or Not to Clone
 "Just because we can, does it mean we
should?"
 Does the good outweigh the bad?
 How do we regulate cloning procedures?

15. Cloning Laws Around the World
 USA - no federal law banning cloning, but several states
have passed their own laws to ban the practice. The U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also said that
anyone in the United States attempting human cloning
must first get its permission.
 Japan - human cloning is a crime that is punishable by
up to 10 years in prison.
 England - has allowed cloning human embryos, but is
working to pass legislation to stop total human cloning.

16. Cloning in Canada
 ban on full cloning
 does allow cloning with regards to stem cell research.
Cloning laws fall under the act that covers other
reproductive technologies, such as in vitro fertilization,
sperm donation and genetic manipulation.
 In 1989, the federal government created a royal
commission to look at new reproductive technologies,
which resulted in the government placing a voluntary
moratorium on human embryo cloning. But so far,
attempts to pass an anti-cloning law have failed.

17. Not Ready?
 While laws are one deterrent to pursuing
human cloning at this time, some
scientists believe the technology is not
ready to be tested on humans. Ian
Wilmut, one of co-creators of Dolly, has
even said that human cloning projects
would be criminally irresponsible.

18. The Realities of Current Cloning
 Cloning technology is still in its early stages, and
– nearly 98 percent of cloning efforts end in failure.
 embryos are either not suitable for implanting or die during
gestation or shortly after birth.
 Those clones that survive suffer from fatal or
problematic genetic abnormalities.
– defective hearts, lung problems, diabetes, blood
vessel problems and malfunctioning immune systems.

19. The Ethical Debate
 Opponents of cloning will point out that
we can euthanize defective clones of
animals, but what about a human clone
born with the same problems?
 Supporters of cloning argue it is easier to
pick out defective embryos even before
they are implanted into the mother
removing the ethical issue.

20. Therapeutic Cloning
 Not all cloning would involve creating an entirely new
human being. Cloning is seen as a possible way to aid
some people who have severe medical problems.
 One potential use of cloning technology would involve
creating a human repair kit. Scientists could clone our
cells and fix mutated genes that cause diseases.
 In January 2001, the British government passed rules to
allow cloning of human embryos to combat diseases
such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

21.  Therapeutic cloning is the
process by which a person's
DNA is used to grow an
embryonic clone.
 Instead of inserting this embryo
into a surrogate mother, its
cells are used to grow stem
cells.
– stem cells can be used as a
human repair kit.
– grow replacement organs, such as
hearts, livers and skin.
– grow neurons to cure those who
suffer from Alzheimer's,
Parkinson's and other diseases.

22. Therapeutic Cloning Process
 Here's how therapeutic cloning works:
– DNA is extracted from a sick person.
– DNA is then inserted into an enucleated donor
egg.
– The egg divides like a typical fertilized egg
and forms an embryo.
– Stem cells removed from the embryo.
– Any kind of tissue or organ can be grown
from these stem cells to treat the sick.

23. End to Infertility?
 aid couples with infertility problems, but who want a
child with at least one of the parent's biological
attributes.
 Some scientists say helping these couples is the goal of
their research and there are hundreds of couples willing
to pay approximately $50,000 for the service.
 procedure involves injecting cells from infertile male into
egg, which would be inserted into the female's uterus.
Their child would look the same as the father.

24. The Dead Walk Again?
 Another use could be
to bring deceased
relatives back to life.
 Imagine using a piece
of your great-grandmother's
DNA to
create a clone of her.
You could be the
parent of your great-grandmother!