Beside Ourselves
The Cloning Poll

(Posted February 19, 1999 · Issue 48)

Spurred by recent claims from Korea that the deed is already done, HMS Beagle readers responded generously, thoughtfully, and often humorously to our latest Top Ten poll, which asked for good reasons to clone human beings - or not. ("When sheep begin to clone humans I shall be in no position to object," wrote one reader, who then proceeded to object.)

Those who argued against human cloning include (among others) a marine biologist in the United States who studies extremophiles, a molecular geneticist in Spain, a virologist in the United States, a physician assistant in Australia, and a theologian in Poland. Among those in favor are an emergency physician in the United States who works in a hospice, a biology instructor in Canada, and an attorney from points unknown. (Proponents were not so willing to state who and where they are.)

Ten reasons not to clone a human being:

Why? There's no good reason to clone a human being
It's narcissistic and morally reprehensible.
Any scientist who wants to do so is just chasing headlines.
We still don't know that it's safe.
We still don't know how to do it well.
It's not good science. We haven't crafted well-formulated questions we would use it to answer.
It goes against human nature, which would allow happenstance to determine our being and our demise.
It goes against human dignity, manipulating human kindness.
It is totalitarian, allowing certain individuals to decide about the quality and quantity of others' lives.
It's too expensive.

Although the number of votes in favor of cloning humans outweighed the number of votes against, the proponents of cloning often repeated the same rationale (most often "Why not?"), so the number of reasons against outnumber the reasons in favor. Pros and cons would have been tied for the number of arguments, except that the author of one "pro" rationale (a clone would be just another "normal human being," a variant of numbers 1 and 3 below) proceeded to present "non-controversial scenarios" that presented good arguments against human cloning. For instance:

What would happen if a copy grew up side by side with its original? You'd have to find a "non-gestational" parent to avoid this problem.
What if someone wanted to raise an army of clones of himself or anyone else? There ought to be a law to limit the number of copies.

Ten reasons to clone a human being:

Why not? There's no good reason not to clone a human being.
You can't stop the progress of science, so why bother trying?
Clones are no different than twins.
To improve medical care of all kinds.
To understand ourselves better.
To get around all the difficulties of adoption or single parenthood.
To have more of me.
To break the monopoly price of half a genome imposed by females for the favor of gestation.
The crown prince of Japan needs an heir.

The crown prince may have to wait a little longer. The Korean Medical Association recently reported that the Kyunghee University Hospital fertility researchers, who had claimed that they had caused a human egg containing a transferred somatic cell nucleus from the same woman to divide twice, are unable to prove that their experiment succeeded.

Andrzej Krauze is an illustrator, poster maker, cartoonist, and painter who illustrates regularly for HMS Beagle, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, Bookseller, and New Statesman.

Tell us what you think.

Top Ten Web Sites for Darwin and the Voyage of HMS Beagle: (Posted February 5, 1998 · Issue 47)
Copy Us on This One: Your Thoughts on Cloning: (Posted December 22, 1998 · Issue 44)
The Not-Quite Nobels: by Tabitha M. Powledge (Posted October 30, 1998 · Issue 41)