Human Cloning and Single Parenting

Making the decision to have a child is a very big step in a person's life. Traditionally this choice is made by two people - a man and a woman, comprising a traditional couple. But, although the large majority of couples continue to be composed of two individuals of the opposite sex, the numbers of same-sex couples are increasing. Regardless, when two women or two men make the choice to have a child, utilizing sexual reproduction with a volunteer partner or using assisted reproductive techniques with donated sperm or a donated egg, the circumstances involve the traditional number of two people.

Human cloning (HC), in marked contrast, would represent a radical departure from family dynamics that have been in place for many thousands of years. HC technology would permit individuals to have children, an option that need to be carefully considered by society before we permit such methods to become available.

An individual might want to have a child via HC for altruistic or selfish reasons. She may not wish to engage in the perceived entanglements of a long-term or lifelong adult relationship, and yet very much wishes to raise a child. He may already have children with an ex-wife, for example, and now believes he can raise a child more effectively on his own. There are many variations of these themes.

In contrast, a person may think highly of himself and desire to bring another person exactly like himself into the world. He may believe the clone will be a perfect business partner, perfect traveling companion, or perfect intellectual sounding board. The person believes that the clone, being a genetic replica, will also develop many or most of the personal characteristics and qualities the person finds so attractive and appealing in herself. Of course, identical genomes do not imply identical personalities, but the availability of HC methods may entice people to have a child and take their chances.

Also, people may want to clone themselves in attempts to fulfill ambitions and other cherished goals. A woman may have been a local figure skating champion but failed on a larger stage. She had a serious injury, didn't have sufficient financial resources to follow her dream, or believed she was slighted by the judges. Now, later in life, she has the opportunity and the means to clone herself. She believes she will "raise my child right" and make sure her daughter reaches the very pinnacle of international figure skating.

Selfish motives and motives for personal gain may figure in many cases of human cloning. But traditional parents commonly impose their selfish desires on their children. Frustrated football players, singer, entrepreneurs, and many others all desperately try to force their children to succeed in areas in which the parents failed. Thus, less-than-altruistic personal motivation is not unique to those who wish to have a child who is a clone. Human cloning cannot be banned on this basis.

David Lemberg, M.S. in Bioethics, Albany Medical College, May 2010
Consultant, Author, Speaker. Research interests - health care and health care policy, reproductive technologies, genetics and genomics, K-12 science education
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Human Cloning - The Child's View

A child who is a clone may be a very different child from all her peers. She looks like a normal child, having been born with the standard set of components - two eyes, two ears, ten fingers, ten toes, all standard issue from top to bottom. But in one crucial characteristic she is radically distinct from all other children. She is the product of one parent's entire genome, rather than being the product of the combination of randomly assorted genes from two parents.

When she becomes sufficiently self-aware she notices she is a nearly identical copy of her genetic mother, if she in fact lives with that person. Same hair color and consistency, same eye color, same skin tones, same overall features. The remarkable resemblance may be commented upon frequently by strangers. Or, if her parents purchased her genetic material from a service, she may encounter a photo of her genetic mother by accident in a magazine or on television.

For example, with commercialization of human cloning technology, celebrity genomes will be much sought after. Parents may want to have a child with the genetic attributes of their favorite professional athlete, music icon, or film star. Any celebrity on the downside of his career, who previously enjoyed a sufficiently high Q rating, could generate a substantial, never-ending income stream by selling access to his genome.

Many untoward scenarios will unfold. In one possible sequence years after a cloning event, the cloned child is sitting in a barbershop, waiting his turn, flipping through sports magazines. He turns a page which reveals an action close-up of a famous NFL quarterback. Unbeknownst to the child, this particular football player's genome is a popular cloning source. The shock of recognition is paralyzing, not electrifying. The boy has the very possibly unwelcome experience of seeing a picture of himself as someone else. His sense of himself as a unique individual is immediately and profoundly disrupted.

Depending on the quality of his upbringing and the degree of his experience of unconditional love, the child who is a clone may successfully move past this deep challenge to his sense of self. In contrasting circumstances, the ramifications of this discovery may affect his welfare and well-being throughout his lifetime. In either situation, many questions will arise that may ongoingly impact his sense of being-in-the-world.

He may question his value as a human being. "Why am I a clone?" he may wonder. "Would I not have been good enough if my birth hadn't been planned in this way?" "Do my parents expect me to behave in a certain way?" "Do they expect me to turn out exactly like the person from whom I was cloned?" "Do I have any choice in the matter of who I become?"

In different circumstances these existential questions may be relevant to all of us. They have immediate and critical impact on the day-to-day living of the cloned child.

David Lemberg, M.S. in Bioethics, Albany Medical College, May 2010
Consultant, Author, Speaker. Research interests - health care and health care policy, reproductive technologies, genetics and genomics, K-12 science education
Executive Producer, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY, http://scienceandsociety.net
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Human Cloning - Distortions in Parent - Child Relationships?

Human cloning (HC) will make it possible for parents to have exactly the kind of child they want - at least from the point of view of genetics. Throughout history parents have conceived children and hoped for the best. All parents could be certain of is that some combination of their two sets of genes would produce a new human being - their child. But the number of possible combinations is very large, and often a child has very few of the physical and personal qualities the parents were hoping for. It is thought that HC would eliminate much of this uncertainty, at least regarding physical characteristics.

Creating a child who is a clone strips all of randomness from the process of reproduction. Literally, with cloning, what you see is what you get with respect to surface qualities. If a father of a male clone is six feet tall, the cloned child will likely grow to a similar height. If a mother of a female clone has superior athletic ability, the cloned child will likely develop such skills. If the parent has blue eyes, the clone's eyes will be blue. A very smart parent of a clone will likely have a very smart child.

Arbitrariness in reproduction is eliminated. An athletic father no longer needs to fear that his son will only be interested in chess and massively multiplayer online role-playing games. A mother who is a physics professor can conceive a cloned child secure in the knowledge that her daughter will have interests that include such things as thermodynamics and number theory.

In other words, HC provides a mechanism by which parents can exert significant control over their children's processes of development, interests, and activities. To the extent that genetics determines such types of human outcomes, HC enables parents to manipulate the choices their children make.

In a certain sense, not much would be changed by HC. Parents have always had hopes and dreams for their children. Most parents attempt to manipulate their offspring, benignly or otherwise, toward choices the parents think will be beneficial. But creating a clone is radically more proactive than merely making suggestions and offering encouragement, however strenuously these are put forward. When a parent creates a clone she is saying, in effect, "I want this child to be exactly like me". Or "I want this child to have exactly the characteristics and qualities of the person from whom he will be cloned."

And, significant stresses may be put in place in the life of the cloned child to ensure that these characteristics and qualities will manifest. In this way, HC opens the door for significant distortions in the parent-child relationship. The child's experience may certainly be that of limited self-expression and limited choice.

David Lemberg, M.S. in Bioethics, Albany Medical College, May 2010

Consultant, Author, Speaker. Research interests - health care and health care policy, reproductive technologies, genetics and genomics, K-12 science education. Executive Producer, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY, http://scienceandsociety.net
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Human Cloning - A Threat to Family Values?

A society (such as a government) grants rights to enable its citizens to flourish. Citizens free to pursue their goals will enrich themselves and those around them. The value of a society grows and expands in concert with the expanding value of individual and family lives. In contrast, those societies and governments which limit the freedoms of their members are stagnant or, at best, restricted in their scope.

However, in a free society such as the United States, citizens are not free to do whatever they please, whenever they please. Responsibility is implicit within the gift of being free, and one's actions are constrained to the extent that they interfere with the rights of others. Additionally, certain norms of conduct form the foundation upon which society is built. It is in the interest of the state to preserve these norms and to prohibit actions and activities that place these norms in jeopardy.

One such norm is that of family life. It is often said that the family is the bedrock of American society. But the constituents of family life have changed markedly during the past 50 years. The traditional American family, consisting of a father and a mother who are married and live in the same house with their children, is no longer the standard. Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, real-life parents of early rock-and-roll crooner Ricky Nelson and stars of the iconic television comedy, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, would scarcely recognize the many forms that make up the landscape of today's American family life. The Nelsons typified the nuclear family, but that form has been obliterated and remade.

Fifty percent of American marriages end in divorce. Two-parent families are the exception rather than the norm. Many American children grow up in a single-parent home, usually that of the mother. Other children have same-sex parents and are raised by two mommies or two daddies. In the last 25 years of the 20th century, the traditional nuclear family consistently faded from view.

Thus, when a commentator decries a new technology or social interaction as a threat to traditional family values, it's important to observe that the entity threatened now holds minority status. Traditional family values are no longer a load-bearing wall in the foundation of society. Family values continue to be that support, but the concept of "traditional" is a moving target. Those uncomfortable with change may wish to cling to their notions of what is meaningful and what is right, but those notions are not germane to the interests of society as a whole.

Human cloning (HC) will most definitely overturn the cart of traditional family values. We need to be much more concerned with how HC will impact our understanding of the family itself.

David Lemberg, M.S. in Bioethics, Albany Medical College, May 2010
Consultant, Author, Speaker. Research interests - health care and health care policy, reproductive technologies, genetics and genomics, K-12 science education
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Beneficence - The Bioethics of Human Cloning

Human cloning (HC) could provide great benefit to families and individuals who have lost the hope of ever having children to whom they have a genetic bond. HC could also substantially benefit those who have lost loved ones through disease or accident. Also, HC could provide cures for those suffering an incurable disease. Thus, there is considerable ethical justification for going forward with research in this contentious field.

HC could make it possible for infertile couples to have genetically related children in a wide set of circumstances. Many solutions already exist for couples who are able to provide neither viable sperm nor viable eggs. These couples may choose from a range of assisted reproductive technologies and sperm/egg donor options. But the children who are born via current methods of have no genetic connection to either parent.

With human cloning, sperm are not necessary and eggs do not need to be capable of fertilization by a sperm. Adult somatic cells (usually skin cells) serve as sperm substitutes. The nucleus is removed from the adult somatic cell and injected into an enucleated egg. The egg is manipulated by physical or chemical means to launch its fertilization program. Embryo creation occurs in the laboratory, bypassing defective physiologic systems of the mother, father, or both which have caused fertilization and development to fail in the past.

HC can result in the birth of a child who is genetically related to the mother and/or the father for couples who are both infertile. If both members of a male same-sex couple are infertile, HC would enable the birth of a child who is genetically related to one father. If both members of a female same-sex couple are infertile, HC would make it possible for them to have a child who is genetically related to both parents. HC significantly expands the capability of assisted reproductive techniques.

Additionally with the availability of HC, tragic circumstances can be mitigated to a certain extent. If a child is fatally killed in a car crash or dies after sustaining a head injury in football or ice hockey, parents would be able to clone the child using DNA from a somatic cell. The new child would not necessarily be identical to the deceased child in terms of personality, interests, and abilities, but he would be a genetic copy and that fact might ameliorate a great deal of the parents' pain and suffering.

A third scenario involves cloning a child with a potentially fatal disease. The clone would be a histocompatible match and be able to provide replacement tissue for her older sibling.

In these diverse situations HC would confer substantial, lifelong benefits to all parties involved in the rearing of a child who is a clone. The parents, the child herself, extended family, friends, and the community all would all benefit from this breakthrough technology.

David Lemberg, M.S. in Bioethics, Albany Medical College, May 2010
Consultant, Author, Speaker. Research interests - health care and health care policy, reproductive technologies, genetics and genomics, K-12 science education
Executive Producer, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY, http://scienceandsociety.net
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