CLONING: OUR SCIENTISTS ARE PURSUING AN UNSPEAKABLE HORROR
Gyorgy ScrinisThe creepy new world of human cloning may be upon us sooner than expected. In a recent report to the Federal Government, the Health Ethics Committee of the National Health and Medical Research Council recommended that the cloning of human embryos for "therapeutic" purposes be legalised. These cloned embryos would be grown and manipulated to produce cells and tissue for the purposes of transplantation and treating diseases, or for growing human body parts.
The committee has, for now, stopped short of endorsing "reproductive cloning" – the production of cloned "whole" humans, as they put it. But you need only to read between the lines of this report, and to hear what other scientists are saying, to know that the cloning of whole humans is not far away.
Scientists and "ethicists" are working their way up to it; they need more time to sharpen their techniques and arguments. They are not yet technically ready for reproductive cloning, and so cloning and experimenting on embryos will give them an opportunity to develop the techniques. They also know that the best strategy for gaining governmental and public approval is to introduce the idea and practice of cloning in incremental stages, so that reproductive cloning won’t appear so radically new or different from what has already been deemed acceptable.
The report perpetuates the false-hood that there is a universal rejection of the idea of reproductive cloning by governments and "reputable" scientists. The intention is to allay our fears that the cloning of embryos and other "parts" of humans would lead to full reproductive cloning. Yet a number of leading specialists in the reproductive, medical and bioethics industries have already spoken in favour of cloning.
Many people, however, still express a "gut reaction" against cloning, which has been condescendingly referred to as the "oh, yuk" factor. But while it may be difficult to articulate why we are opposed to the idea of human cloning, there is danger in thinking we must come up with "rational" and "practical" reasons for our opposition to it.
Some critics of cloning make this mistake when they argue that a cloned individual may face psychological problems, that the child’s "individual rights" will be infringed upon, or that there are dangers of deformed or aborted foetuses. Proponents of cloning are happy to engage in such debates, and have little trouble coming up with counter-arguments, such as the existence of well-adjusted twins, or noting that a person’s individuality is not just determined by their genes.
But to enter into this discourse of "benefits" and "problems" is to engage with cloning as if it were a tolerable reality.
Cloning is, to use the historian Ivan Illich’s expression, one of the "unspeakable horrors" of the contemporary era. As Illich asserts, we do not need to articulate arguments for why we are opposed to such horrors. It is not a question of weighing up the possible psychological, biological or ecological "side-effects" associated with them. Either you are – in your heart – opposed to cloning, or you are not. Either you are horrified that we would even contemplate cloning people, or you are not. We must have the conviction to simply say "No", and to walk away from debates that effectively legitimise such an intolerable reality.
It is important, too, to step back and situate cloning within the context of the broader biotechnological project of which it is a part and to question that project’s underlying logic. The ultimate goal is the precise and instrumental control and transformation of nature and the body. The acceptance of an "other side" to nature that is beyond our control gives way to the goal of precisely programming and managing humans and nature.
In the case of cloning, it is not just one or two genetic traits being engineered, it is the entire genetic structure of the child being predetermined. And it doesn’t end there. Throughout life, the cloned person may be professionally and technologically shaped and managed in other ways: gene therapy, facial and bodily reconstruction, hormone treatment, nutritional advice, chemically and genetically enhanced foods, and so on.
In the name of "improving" our "quality of life", we submit to the prospect of totally engineered lives, and a new level of dependence on the integration into the techno-industrial system. The concepts of "life" and "health" are used to justify every kind of professional and technological intervention.
That we are already cloning animals and producing human-animal genetic hybrids is an indication of how far we have allowed such instrumental approaches to override all other ways of being human. Aren’t we horrified by the prospect of factories producing spare body parts? On what basis do we accept this yet plausibly reject human cloning? That line in the sand has already been crossed.
(Source: The Age, 15/3/99)