Creating Humans: Ethical Questions, Part 4

~The next lecture in the course is about cloning.  The public perception of cloning has been irrevocably shaped by (bad) science-fiction films such as The 6th Day and Attack of the Clones.  As a result, many people (and lawmakers) have distorted views on what cloning is and isn't.  As an added complication, cloning technology is still in its infancy, and the ability to create human clones is not yet available (despite over-hyped "breakthroughs" every few years that turn out to be hoaxes or fakes).

So what exactly is meant by "cloning"?  The science of cloning can be said to have begun with the successful cloning of Dolly, a sheep, who was created by taking a cell from an adult sheep and fusing it with an unfertilized egg of an ewe in 1996.  Her creation was hailed as both a major scientific breakthrough and a serious ethical concern, because it was assumed by many that it wouldn't be too long until humans were being cloned.  As I mentioned above, the distorted public view of cloning led many to fear that we'd be copying ourselves and having our own doppelgängers running amok.  This is an example of the "slippery slope" logical fallacy: that the cloning of animals (even a single animal cloned purely as an experiment) will somehow automatically lead to the cloning of humans.

So human cloning is seen as "bad" by most.  Why?  Part of it is an argument against hubris: that by cloning people, we are somehow "playing god" and meddling with Things Man Was Not Meant To Meddle With.  People also seem repelled by the individual hubris of people so vain that they might want to create copies of themselves simply to "live on" in them, more so than with the genetic mixing in "normal" children.  Finally, and most importantly in my view, are the as-yet-unknown risks to a cloned child.  277 cell fusions were required to produce Dolly, but only 29 viable cloned embryos were created, and only one survived to birth.  Even with genetic and technological advances over the past 14 years, the ethical consequences of creating so many miscarriages are simply too ugly for most respectable (and publicly-funded) research laboratories to seriously consider, and serious future health risks to the child are quite possible.  I imagine most people don't like the idea of creating a clone child simply as an experiment, to see what (if any) health problems it develops as a basis for future, healthy clones.

Fortunately, widespread cloning isn't likely to happen even if the technology is safe and available.  People are hardly lining up to be cloned, and cloning is a frequent target of biomedical ethics laws and international conventions.  Part of this is because cloning is such an easy target: unlike the divisive issue of abortion, since "everybody" sees cloning as bad, it's easy for a politician to score ethical points by denouncing cloning and vowing to ban it.  It also helps that doing so is effectively banning something that doesn't actually exist yet, which makes it all the easier to ban.  I wonder how many politicians actually know what cloning is and what we are (and aren't actually) capable of.

So at present, the ethical issues of cloning humans are something of a moot point.  But of course, those sci-fi movies continue to rear their ugly heads.  Sure, we upstanding, moral citizens might oppose cloning, but what about totalitarian nations eager to create clone-armies of their best soldiers?  Crazed dictators and kings with god-complexes who want to rule eternally though a clone lineage?  A nightmarish corpocracy where companies create, own, use, and sell clones as merchandise?  The potential misuses of cloning technology are endless, but are also presently more than a bit fanciful.

If human cloning does actually occur in the near future, it is likely to be the result of an unethical (and condemned) experiment by volunteers who are in it for fame and money.  The first cloned child is likely to be something of an oddity, and may become moderately famous.  But society is fickle, and there are no prizes for second place in science, so I doubt there will be a sudden wave of clones.  However, a far more sinister scenario, taking place a bit later, is for wealthy, morally-bankrupt people (perhaps the aforementioned dictators) to clone themselves using surrogate mothers, not to perpetuate their lineage but to ensure a perfect match for organ donations.  Clones created for such a dark purpose are likely to spend their miserable lives locked away, pampered but isolated, only to be used and disposed of as needed.  Outlandish?  I wouldn't put it past someone like Kim Jong Il or unscrupulous billionaires.

Still, I don't see this as becoming a major problem in society at large, at least not for a long time.  And even if the unfortunate scenarios I've outlined do take place, they are likely to be rare and hidden away by their perpetrators, like all despicable crimes.  I think most people can accept that a clone is not the same as the person they are cloned from; they are an independent human with their own mind and differences created by their life experiences.  A healthy democracy would not treat clones as slaves, property, or second-class citizens, but as normal people, no different from the way we treat identical twins or people with genetically-inherited handicaps.

To summarize: the possibility of cloning raises serious ethical and medical challenges, but cloning isn't likely to be problematic in the near future.

Creating Humans: Ethical Questions, Part 3

~The next topic in this course is The Science of Reproduction.  The first (and most obvious point) made by the lecture is that, in a global sense, infertility is not really a problem.  The population of the Earth continues to rise at an astounding pace; despite an overall decline in the actual rate of growth, it's still growth.  While fertility rates have declined in some areas, for our species, infertility is not likely to wipe us out any time soon.  We're hardly in a Children of Men situation yet.

However, declining birthrates are a problem in some societies.  For example, the population of Japan is falling and, barring a major change in society, will continue to do so.  This has led to some unusual attempts at solutions; for example, Japan's largest business association urged its members to allow workers to go home earlier in order to "have more babies".  In Russia, loosened immigration restrictions in the post-Soviet era, combined with societal and economic problems, has led to a mass exodus of young Russians and a corresponding decrease in population (the nation is expected to lose 30 million people over the next few decades).  In response, Russia has severely restricted abortions, although population experts expect this to have little impact on the decline of Russia's population.  Or consider Israel, with the largest number of fertility clinics per-capita in the world and extensive socialized medical benefits for reproductive assistance...and an intense need to increase its Jewish population.  This results in a great deal of social pressure to use these technologies, especially among Orthodox communities in which female infertility is grounds for divorce.


The upshot of all this is that in the developed world, populations are likely to level out and, in some areas, fall. In the developing world, populations will continue to rise, although not as fast as in the past century due to improvements in hygiene and education, as well as from infections such as HIV.  So if the global population is still rising fast, should people with fertility problems have the right to use assistive technology?  I imagine the response of many people would be, "Can't they adopt?"  Yet what right does society, and by extension the law, have to restrict this fundamental human drive?  After all, from a biological perspective, the entire purpose of life is to reproduce itself (not to enjoy itself, although luckily for humans evolution has cleverly combined enjoyment with reproduction).

But the increasing availability of assistive technology raises another, more subtle problem.  In nations with falling birthrates and declining populations, or in societies/cultures/ethnicities within those nations with similar problems, do these technologies pressure otherwise-infertile women to use them?  In other words, if a woman is unable to naturally become pregnant, will she feel a social obligation to "go the extra mile" and partake of these technologies?  Does reproduction become a social responsibility?  I don't think we're likely to end up in some Orwellian nightmare where people are forced to reproduce; this is a question of societal pressures and overall direction.

Consider this article, which describes the intense guilt felt by childless women in Japan. While this is in some ways a product of Japanese culture, I can see the same thing happening in other countries as well.  For example, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, white Americans will no longer be the majority in the U.S. within a few decades, and I'm sure we will see less tolerant people (i.e. racists) bemoaning this fact and pressuring white couples to have more children.  Consider the creepy Quiverfull movement, where Christian fundamentalist couples seek to have as many children as possible.  Although often couched in terms of faith, there is a not-so-subtle subtext of "race suicide" they're trying to prevent.

Disturbing.

I think that it's important that as reproductive technologies become increasingly available, steps are taken to ensure that people do not feel pressured to use them.  Perhaps some pressure is inevitable, if only because there may be choices where before, no choice existed for an infertile couple.  Still, I'd hate to see the kind of social pressure that exists in Japan spread to other countries with declining birthrates.  I think it's fine that health insurance programs now cover many reproductive procedures, but it would be interesting to see a study of whether or not women (and men) feel pressured to make use of them.  

Reproduction is an intensely personal and private act, and these technologies force it partially into the public sphere.  So what do you think about all this?  Do you see societal pressure to use this technology as a problem, or a future problem?  Why or why not?  Do you think that we as a society need to do anything about it?  I don't really see America banning advertisements for these services; instead, it's up to you and other people, as individuals, to keep in mind that the fertility problems of other people are none of your business.

Creating Humans: Ethical Questions, Part 2

~Lecture 2 of Creating Humans dealt with a question central to reproductive ethics: When does life begin?  For many people, this is an easy, blatantly obvious answer, and they cannot understand why other people might want to answer this question differently.  We've all heard these answers, mostly in the context of abortion.  The pro-life crowd howls, "Life begins at conception!".  The pro-choice crowd snaps that "Life begins at birth!"  There is no middle ground in the arena of moral absolutes.

[Source: Englehart, Bob. "When Does Life Begin?" The Hartford Courant: 1981.]

That being said, the lecture makes the point that although people don't morally agree on a definition of when life begins, the actual law in place in the U.S. and U.K. is in fact an elaborate series of compromises between the two extremes.  This results in the law being rigid in some areas of assistive technology, and slack in others.  This is especially apparent with newer technologies that either do not loom large in the public imagination, or are morally ambiguous.  For example, some U.S. state laws are as restrictive as possible in limiting abortion, but allow IVF and prenatal screening almost without regulation.  It's easy for politicians to score points with voters by taking a very public position on a hot-button issue, while ignoring a morally-equivalent issue that doesn't get the same amount of press (this comes up again in the lecture on cloning).

Much of lecture 2 was devoted towards attempting to establish a scientific, objective definition for when a person is really a "person" and thus entitled to legal protection.  Although I found the science in this area to be interesting, I also thought it was mostly a waste of time to apply such science to the law.  Regardless of what the facts are, I don't think any definition will find universal acceptance; the emotions simply run too high, and are too tightly bound to the endless, fossilized abortion "debate".  It would be nice if we could agree on a definition to help guide us in the use of other reproductive technologies, but I don't think it's going to happen in a social sense.  Even (or rather, especially) any attempt at a legal definition would be subject to endless attack.

• My view: an embryo is a "person" once it's actually embedded in a person and growing on its merry way.  I don't think that an embryo fertilized in a lab and sitting in all of its single-celled glory is a "person", and I don't think that fertilizing (and discarding) embryos for IVF or screening is somehow a monstrous crime against humanity or first-degree murder of a child, etc.  But there is one major caveat to my definition: I have no desire whatsoever to legally impose it on anyone by force.  This is one of many reasons why I would make a terrible judge or politician; I'm no good at condemnation.  Does this mean that I am a wicked/weak, immoral person?

• Despite what I've said above about moral absolutism, I've found that the truth is actually much more fungible (great word, fungible).  Some people -- I would go so far as to say many people -- will quickly abandon deeply-held beliefs if doing so somehow benefits them personally.  They are just as quick to revert to their previous position later on.  It's part of how our brains work; humans, like other organisms, are evolved to adapt to changing circumstances.  For example, consider the essay "The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion", a collection of exceptionalist anecdotes (displaying a very American mentality).  Another theoretical example would be a parent who also believes that life begins at conception, but upon discovering they and/or their partner are having fertility problems, will search out reproductive technology such as IVF...while still clinging to their absolutism.  We might shake our heads and call these people hypocrites, but I think it's important not to judge them.  Remember, don't judge someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes (that way, you're a mile away, and you have their shoes).

• Please consider this question: when do you think a fertilized embryo becomes a "person"?  Are you a moral absolutist, with no room for compromise?  If your definition is based solely on your beliefs regarding abortion, please try for a moment to look beyond that ossified debate and think about how your definition might affect your views on other forms of reproductive technology, such as in-vitro fertilization, screening for diseases, genetic enhancement, cloning, and so forth.  Consider what you would do if you or someone you love needed or wanted to use one of these technologies.