Topic:	Genetic Engineering and Cloning
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Guest:	Henry A. Greely, C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
What is it?	Ken and John and Ken and John discuss cloning and the ethical issues surrounding genetic engineering. When is genetic manipulation morally permissible? For health? Beauty? Wit? What sorts of animals is it acceptable to clone? Should we ban stem cell research?

About the Guest

Hank Greely is the author of "Cloning Californians?: Report of the California Advisory Committee on Human Cloning," former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, Ethics Chair of the American part of the human genome project, and Chair of the Steering Committee for the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.

Listening Notes

In the first segment of this episode, John Perry and Ken Taylor introduce the most basic arguments for and against stem cell research.  Both Perry and Taylor agree that stem cell research has tremendously beneficial implications for the people who would be directly affected by such research. Since stem cells are differentiable and can grow into any kind of organ with the right chemical signaling, it would be possible to create organs such as hearts for transplant and save hundreds of patients' lives. Further down the line, stem cell research may even lead to the development of transplantive brain tissue to help patients with Parkinson's and diabetes. The ethical dilemma posed by stem cell research centers around debates over when life begins. Kant argues in his Groundwork on the Metaphysics of Morals that we should treat the humanity in ourselves and in others as an end and not simply as a means. Those who see problems with stem cell research claim that, since an embryo grows into a person given no intervention, it is a potential person, and so we should respect it's potential to develop its own rational capacity and autonomy—personhood. By creating embryos for the harvesting of stem cells, then, we are treating human life—as potential as it is—as means and this seems morally objectionable. Those in favor of stem cell research point to the fact that an embryo or blastocyst is merely a clump of cells that can develop into anything—whether that is a person, persons, or organs. In this sense such a clump of undetermined, differentiable cells possess no property or criterion that could distinguish them as persons and therefore there is no ethical conflict.

The key moral difficulties as guest Hank Greely sees them have to do with the variety of positions on the moral status of a human embryo. It would be easy enough if an embryo were simply a clump of stem cells, but of course embryos do have the potential to grow into live human beings. Greely points out that the moral arguments concerned with the destruction of human embryos in harvesting stem cells are interesting when we consider that the potential of an embryo to become a person is only realized if it is carried in a womb to full term. About 50 to 80 percent of all fertilized eggs never establish pregnancies, so, actually, a fair amount of created embryos are naturally discarded. The line between persons and nonpersons is somewhat arbitrary, but people do draw them.

As far as genetically enhancing our children, Greely points out that we still know very little about the connection between genes and things like intelligence and other traits we want in our children and we might never know much about how to make genetic alterations. On the other hand, it seems as parents we are obliged to do all we can to enhance our children. Arguably, this is the point of the great extent to which we “raise” our kids.

• Amy Standen the Roving Philosophical Reporter (Seek to: 00:04:30): Amy reports from the waiting room of the UC San Francisco Pediatric Care department that specializes in the treatment of type 1 diabetes in children.  Stem cells with their regenerative capacity could provide a cure for diabetes.

• Ian Shoales the Sixty-Second Philosopher (Seek To: 00:36:26): Report on Eugenics

• Conundrum (Seek to: 00:48:32): Would you be wasting your vote by not voting for one of the leading contenders in a presidential election? Should you vote on principle, or vote to prevent a particular party line from winning?

Additional Resources

• A list of informative sources to begin a self-search for information on cloning, stem cell research, and genetic engineering.

• An article on cloning human beings (a good overview of the opposing viewpoints and an introduction to the science of cloning.)

• "Neither Person Nor Property: Embryo research and the status of the early embryo," by Paul Lauritzen.

• Links relating to nuclear transfer and cloning.

• The moral implications of cloning animals.

• A collection of useful sites on cloning and genetic engineering.

• An Objectivist position on cloning.

• The Center of Applied Ethics, site on Chinese philosophy and medical ethics.

• A Time Magazine article on cloning.

• Books available for purchase on the controversy of stem cell research and cloning.

• A Catholic perspective on cloning.

• Other articles and texts:
  • Bing-Yuan Chen, Harry W. Janes.  PCR Cloning Protocols: From Molecular Cloning to Genetic Engineering.  (Plastic Comb, 2002).

   

  • Patrick D. Hopkins.  "Protecting God from Science and Technology: How Religious Criticisms of Biotechnologies Backfire."  Journal of Religion and Science.

   

  • Martin Le Bar.  "The Pros and Cons of Human Cloning."  Thought: Fordham University Quarterly, (1984), pp. 319-333.

   

  • Phyllis P. McDonald.  Cloning and Genetic Engineering: Social and Legal Implications.  (Carolina Biological Supply Co., 1978).

   

  • Dorothy Nelkin.  "Cloning in the Popular Imagination."  Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Spring 1998), pp. 145-149.

   

  • Bernard E. Rollin. "Keeping Up with the Cloneses: Issues in Human Cloning."  Journal of Ethics, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1999), pp. 51-71.

   

  • Gregory Stock, et al.  Engineering the Human Germline: An Exploration of the Science and Ethics of Altering the Genes We Pass to Our Children.  (Oxford UP, 2000).