Cloning myths: time to take thought.

Since the birth of Dolly, the cloned sheep, the debate over human cloning has been characterized by misunderstanding and exaggeration. These have been fueled in part by a lack of careful distinctions in popular reports and discourse. For example, three distinct types of cloning - gene cloning, cellular cloning, and whole-organism cloning - have sometimes been fused in media coverage, leading to widespread confusion. Gene cloning multiplies identical copies of various genes; cellular cloning, a more complicated technique, replicates whole cells; and whole-organism cloning - the most complicated - reproduces whole organisms.

Gene and cell cloning are well-established, standard biotechnical research methods and must be distinguished and discussed separately from organism cloning. Organism cloning, a la Dolly, signaled a dramatic scientific breakthrough because Dolly's cloning was accomplished with cells that were six years old and fully differentiated. The common wisdom until then was that such cells could not be reprogrammed to generate a new being. While Dolly has vast ramifications for both animal husbandry and the production of pharmaceuticals, the most important scientific breakthrough was the reactivation of fully differentiated cells, a point frequently missed by popular reports. Recently, this very breakthrough has been called into question by some senior scientists because the procedure has not yet been replicated, and because, in the absence of the ewe from which Dolly's cells were taken, there is no way of verifying that the cells that were used were adult cells rather than fetal cells (the same ewe was pregnant at the time).

Human cloning is an altogether different matter from the cloning of sheep and cattle. This fact has been pointed out not only by ethicists and government officials, but by research scientists. But as in the debate about the cloning of animals, the human cloning debate has been characterized by many misunderstandings. The most common has been that if I were to clone myself, I would create another me, because each of us would have the same genetic identity. On reflection, most would recognize that this kind of simplistic genetic reductionism can't be right: Identical twins - who share the same genetic identity - are not identical persons. Furthermore, such reductionism fails to take into account the importance of environment, experience, physical and psychological factors, and a host of other variables that contribute to an individual's formation and identity.

Another mistaken assumption is that human clones would necessarily act alike: All Michael Jordan clones would be superior basketball stars because of genetic identity. Again, this ignores not only the role of environment, but the constitutive part played by human freedom and endeavor in shaping our identity.

Finally, some have assumed that human cloning would lead to a ready supply of replacement parts to be made available for use by the cloner when, for example, one of his or her organs might fail. But such an assumption fails to acknowledge that a clone would also be a human person with inalienable rights and vital interests - not to mention moral and legal standing - in how his or her body ought to be used. Once we grant that, however, the replacement debate necessarily ends, but not the human cloning debate which now shifts to assisted reproduction.

Can (or should) a couple who have been unable to conceive in any other way that would guarantee a genetic relation to one of the parents be prohibited from using cloning to produce a child? Unless one has moral objections to all forms of assisted reproduction, the argument goes, cloning can be yet another morally valid technique for producing a child. While there is a certain logic to this train of thought, there are nonetheless three reasons why its conclusion should be resisted.

First, the argument is predicated on the sovereignty of personal choice: Someone wants the procedure, consents to it, can pay for it, and, therefore, ought to have it. Such an argument begs the question of the sufficiency of individual choice as the only morally relevant value in ethical analysis.

A second argument is a variant of personal choice which states that having a child is a strictly private matter and, therefore, should not be subjected to outside social analysis. But even though the choice is private and assisted-reproduction clinics are privately owned and funded, nonetheless such private choices in private institutions have profound social implications. For example, insurance and health-care interests already play a role in how such choices are mediated because some insurance plans cover some infertility services and health care during pregnancy, and thus increase the cost of premiums for all members of the plan. Furthermore, since multiple pregnancies are a possibility because multiple embryos are implanted to insure a pregnancy, there might be significant intensive-care-unit expenses incurred, a cost which will again be passed along to members of the plan. Such social costs render private choices less private and more open to social evaluation.

A third argument is that as in so many other aspects of American life, the market should rule. Eggs and sperm are currently available for sale (though the price of eggs has just more than doubled to $5,000), as are custom-designed embryos. The technology of cloning can further refine that product helping to market it better. But once again a deeper question has been avoided. For if we market ourselves in such a manner - even to fulfill a noble wish, such as the desire to have a child - and place a quantifiable price on the transaction, we have made ourselves into objects whose price is known but whose value has been forgotten. In so doing, we risk diminishing the value of human life.

The critical question before us, therefore, is whether we can apply the developments in cloning to reproductive technology in such a way as to assure the larger good of human dignity and individuality in a moral manner. To do that we will need both time and discernment. Insuring that we take the time and expend the effort to think hard about these scientific developments constitutes the most critical phase of the ongoing cloning debate.

Thomas A. Shannon is professor of religion and social ethics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts.