Imagine
that you are one of the human clones that will – there is no doubt about it –
exist in the near future, and imagine you have to listen in to the arguments that
many opinion leaders are currently presenting for making cloning illegal: that
cloning is a threat to human dignity, that it's playing God, that it's a slippery
slope, that everybody has a right to a unique genome (except identical twins?)
or to an unknown genome, and so on and so forth. How would it make you feel? Probably
you would feel much the same way as a black man suffering racial abuse or a woman
being the victim of sexual harassment. Luckily, however, by the time a human clone
reaches the age where she can understand what is being said, all these arguments
we hear today will be forgotten. That is what happened to the moral panic that
once raged over the "yucky" prospect of transplanting a heart from one
individual to another; and to most of the opposition to in vitro fertilization,
which was not heard from again after the birth in 1978 of Louise Brown, the first
"test tube baby". (Public approval of IVF in America is up from 15%
in the early seventies to over 70% today. The Catholic Church is likely to remains
opposed for the foreseeable future - it is still struggling to come to grips with
the Rubber Johnny.)
Human
cloning is overhyped. If you are upset about it, chill out. The truth is, it really
doesn’t matter much one way or the other, except to the parents who could not
otherwise conceive, and to the children that could not otherwise have been born.
Human reproductive cloning will never have an impact on society at large. Long
before a large enough number of clones have been born and reached adulthood to
have any potential effect on our society, much more exciting reproductive technologies
will be available. These will make it possible not only to copy an existing genotype
but also to design new genotypes to precise specification. Parents will be able
to select genes for their kids that correlate with all sorts of desirable characteristics,
such as health, longevity, intelligence, athletic ability, beauty, and a pleasant
temperament. And long before any such genetically enhanced children have reached
an age where they can have a noticeable impact on society, there will exist still
more potent technologies, making even this development insignificant.
The
stereotypical ethicist of today (there are exceptions) has a basically reactive
attitude to technological development. He is like a blindfolded person under constant
bombardment. Each new breakthrough, which he couldn't see coming, knocks him off
his balance. All he can do is to condemn, worry, and call for bans.
Transhumanists
take a different approach, facing up to the full range of future possibilities
that we can anticipate and expecting yet further possibilities that we cannot
yet foresee. And instead of just reacting to developments as they happen, transhumanists
have an evolving vision of what they want to achieve through technology. They
want to use technology to give humans new capacities and to enhance the capacities
we have. Human nature, they say, is a work in progress. Humanity is a magnificent
beginning, yes, but well, you ain’t see nothin’ yet.
On
this view, it is not the case that technological development is always progress
and that all technology is good. For technology can also be used for destructive
purposes, and the more powerful the technology, the graver its abuse potential.
For example, those who have though through the consequences of the anticipated
ability to design and build nanosystems (complex gadgets to atomic precision)
are rightly worried about the possibility of misuse of this technology, with potentially
deadly consequences. Small self-replicating molecular machines, mechanical bacteria
that could be made to feed on organic matter, may one day be built. In the wrong
hands, this technology would pose a threat to the survival of intelligent life
and Earth’s biosphere.
And
this ties in with our discussion of cloning. What concern me about the cloning
ruckus are two things. First, the naiveté of the intelligentsia’s response and
the unpreparedness of our society in dealing with this relatively trifling technological
development. In some countries there is even a risk that legislators will respond
by passing legislation that would outlaw not only human reproductive cloning but
also research into therapeutic cloning, although the two have little more in common
than seven letters. If we cannot keep our heads level at the prospect that some
individuals may come to have a younger identical twin, then what are our chances
when the time comes to deal with technologies that pose a threat to our species’
existence? Will we manage to have informed, constructive discussions, and responsible,
timely decision-making? Maybe, if we smarten up. But we better start soon.
My
second concern is that crying “Wolf!” too often – when there quite plainly is
no wolf – may cause people to ignore the moral alarm the one time when the warning
is real. Imagine that in a couple of decades an urgent need arises to pass some
globally binding regulation on some aspect of nanotechnology to prevent human
extinction. Will people put their pillows over their heads and mutter, “Well,
they foretold doom and gloom in the cases of heart transplantation, and IVF, and
acid rain, and resource depletion, and overpopulation, and global warming, and
GM food, and human cloning, and genetically enhanced children, and on a hundred
other occasions. Nothing happened. Why do they expect me to pay attention this
time?”
So
this is what I think about cloning. It is just another tool that will make it
possible for some infertile couples to have the biological child they could not
otherwise have, and will enable some not-infertile parents to better satisfy their
reproductive preferences as well. You can celebrate this as progress, if you are
so inclined. Or you can simply accept it with a shrug. But let’s hope that it
will somehow stimulate us to ascend to a level where issues raised by our current
rapid technological development can be discussed in an informed and constructive
manner and where we can begin to debate the options for our species’ future in
a more mature way. And better still than hope, let’s join in the efforts of those
who are working to make it happen.