Mr. Chairman, I have taught and written about medical ethics for nearly 25 years in the medical school in Birmingham. In the early 1970’s, all bioethicists except Joseph Fletcher opposed “test tube babies” for fear of monsters, harm to families, and harm to the identity of the children created. Many of these same critics today oppose human cloning.  Now over 100,000 American babies exist – 200,000 worldwide – who would not have existed had these critics won. Back then, over 80% of Americans opposed test-tube babies; now the same percent of Americans support such efforts.

What can we learn from this experience? First, such babies were not viewed by their parents as the critics predicted, that is, as “commodities” or as “products.” Instead, and because of the effort and cost that the parents endure, these children are very, very loved.

To me, the essential moral question is whether human cloning is intrinsically wrong. But how can a new way of creating a family be intrinsically wrong? How can a way of avoiding hereditary genetic disease be intrinsically wrong?

If it is not intrinsically wrong, then we must ask whether it I wrong for some other, associated reason, mainly, whether a child created by cloning would be harmed, psychologically or physically.

I believe that questions of psychological harm here are entirely speculative and stem from science fiction and pop psychology. I believe that how children are originated has little to do with their future mental health. The real requirement for the happiness of children is loving parents.

As for physical danger, I believe that children should not be originated by cloning until this process is as safe as sexual reproduction, which now has a roughly 1-2% rate of abnormalities. At the moment, Mr. Chairman, I believe it is premature to proceed with attempts to originate humans by cloning, but continuing research and advanced screening techniques for embryos may one day achieve safe results. Until then, I believe that families and physicians should be allowed to handle such matters without being subject to criminal penalties.

Over twenty years ago and partly in response to worries about assisted reproduction, Congress banned federal funds from being used for embryonic research. Over subsequent decades, many scientists tried to get this ban overturned, but it was very difficult to do so. If cloning were similarly banned or criminalized, it would be very difficult to ever undo such prohibitions – no matter what science later learned. Let us learn from the past and not repeat its mistakes. Let us leave such matters to physicians, scientists, and families, not to the federal government.

Finally, if government bans attempts at human cloning because of worries about developmental defects, will such a ban be the first step toward greater federal intrusions? As a result of the Human Genome Project, more fetuses will be tested for genetic diseases and more parents will learn that their fetuses carry genetic defects. Only instead of probable or likely genetic defects, these babies will have certain defects. Here it is important that some couples decide not to abort such fetuses and decide to carry them to term.

In this situation, and for the worthy aim of preventing such defects, will the same government be forced to encourage or even require abortions of such fetuses with genetic diseases? Doesn’t the same goal and the same expansion of federal power justify both intrusions into reproductive freedom? If our moral criterion is the best interest of future children, how can government ban reproduction for likely defects but not for certain defects?

The reverse of this point is also interesting. If preventing defective children justifies federal intervention in the bedroom, and if cloning one day becomes safer than sexual reproduction, will cloning then be the only required way to have children – based on the good of future children?

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to testify today.

References:

Gregory E. Pence, Re-Creating Medicine: Ethical Issues at the Frontiers of Medicine (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Md. 2001) (on the effects of the ban on federal funding of embryo research).

Gregory E. Pence, Who’s Afraid of Human Cloning? Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Md. 1998) (on irrationalities about cloning humans).

Gregory  Pence, Classic Cases in Medical Ethics: Accounts of the Cases that Shaped Medical Ethics, 3^rd edition, McGraw-Hill, 2000 (on the history of assisted reproduction and past controversy).