ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 27, 1997 TAG: 9702270009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
IAN WILMUT created a lamb named Dolly from the DNA of another sheep, for the first time cloning a mammal and raising questions about matters as profound as what it is to be a human being.
Wilmut and his fellow Scottish researchers with the Southwest Virginia tie - PPL Therapeutics in Blacksburg is the U.S. subsidiary of PPL Therapeutics in Edinburgh - say their success in creating an identical copy of a sheep simply advances the science of animal husbandry. Yes, the technology could be applied to humans, but using it to clone people would be unethical, they argue. Cloning is simply a way to improve the supply of food and other animal products.
No matter how narrow their intent in developing a successful cloning process, though, scientists cannot escape the broader implications of the discovery.
Humankind now has the theoretical knowledge to duplicate itself. Does it have the wisdom to know how to use it - or not to use it? How quickly the ability to do outpaces our ability to know what it is we are doing.
Of course, theory is a long way from application. The technique is too dangerous and ineffective now to use with human beings. Experimenting on human embryos at this point is simply too repugnant to contemplate: It took almost 300 attempts before a sheep embryo developed into a healthy lamb.
But knowledge will grow. Experiments will move on to other animals: first cows and lambs, one bioethicist predicts, then racehorses, then cats and dogs. Smitten owners will be able to make copies of beloved pets.
Once we can duplicate pets, what happens, then, when a child is mortally injured? What parent would not yearn to have that child back? Why not clone another with his DNA?
Why not clone people as organ donors? Or a person with sought-after traits? A genius, or a great athlete? Why not clone an entire basketball team?
The prospect of such temptations has led many European nations to adopt a bioethics code forbidding genetic experiments that would change future human generations. The United States has no such proscription - and it has thousands of frozen embryos, stored at fertility clinics, that could be used for experimentation.
Many biomedical researchers and ethicists say there is no need or justification to expand cloning technology to human beings. But some say that to expect to stop scientific advances is unreasonable, probably impossible, and possibly unwise. Human cloning could encourage appalling narcissism and play havoc with the genetic vigor that comes with diversity. But it might be thinkable under some circumstances - in a family that risks having a baby with an inherited disease through the normal birth process, for example.
As science brings us closer to pondering such an option for real, we are called to look for answers not through microscopes but through careful examination of beliefs about human life that have been constructed over centuries. Theology and philosophy have new importance as science forces society to confront essential questions about life, and about what is right and what is wrong.
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