Pence Who's Afraid Of Cloning

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Concern about response and negative view of cloning:

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Pence is very concerned about the speed with which these conclusions were reached, the lack of critical thought involved in their deduction, and the lack of arguments presented against cloning. He cautions that "these knee-jerk condemnations stem from fear and ignorance; they should not be mistaken for moral wisdom." So what, if any, arguments can legitimately be advanced against human cloning?

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Who viewed it negatively:

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Legislation was introduced to ban human cloning in New York

Catholic Bishops stated that "each human being has a right to two biological parents"

President Clinton issued a moratorium on federal funding for cloning research

French President Jacques Chirac stated that cloning "undermined the dignity of people".

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What does Pence think?

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Pence thinks that there is no reason to suppose that human individuality consists in possession of a unique genome.

1) the cloner and the clonant would not even be molecularly identical; our genome is subject to mutations over the course of our lifetime and, one cloned, the genomes of the cloner and the clonant would begin to diverge. So the cloner and the clonant would not technically be genetically identical anyway and, even if they were, it would not undermine individuality.

2) physical differences between the cloner and the clonant are manifested in brain chemistry, which is affected by experience—experiences and memories strengthen certain neural connections—would obviously be different between the cloner and the clonant as they would have different experiences.

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Moral Status of Clones

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Some people seem to assume that clones would be afforded less moral status than non-clones or that clones would somehow be subjugated to their makers. Some commentators have even feared that cloning would lead to the creation of "slave races" or that the clonant may clone himself so that he would have access to organs in the future, were he to ever need them (note Pence's indictment against Kass here).

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"Principle of Non-Discrimination by Origins"

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This principle holds that nobody should suffer discrimination because of how he was created: from married parents, from unmarried parents, by in vitro fertilization, by rape, etc. A clonant would, like any other child, be gestated by a woman for nine months and be raised by one or more parent in the same neighborhoods as sexually conceived children, attend the same schools, etc.
The only difference between the clonant and a sexually conceived child is that the former's genome would have (most proximately) come from one parent, whereas the latter's would have (most proximately) come from two.

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Pence's opposition to cloning yourself:

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As he already argued, the clonant would be a unique individual, not "another me". But, furthermore, there would be tremendous differences between the cloner and the clonant.

1) First, the cloner would be an adult, while the clonant would be a baby (at the time of delivery). Second, the clonant would develop in an entirely different environment than the cloner: he would live in a different era; participate in a different culture; be exposed to newer technologies; have different (social) parents, etc. These differences would translate into a radically different life.

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People argue that you could put pressure on the clonant:

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Some (including Kass) have argued that cloning will put tremendous pressures on the clonant. Presumably, the clonant will already have some idea as to what his future talents will consist in and will face constant comparisons to the cloner. There are several responses that we might make to this line of criticism.
First, we might observe, as Pence just did, that the clonant will be growing up in an entirely different environment and that many of his life experiences will necessarily diverge from the cloner's because of these differences in environment (e.g., imagine that the cloner grew corn but that, because of technological advances, manual farming is obsolete and I, the clonant, must move to the big city and pursue some other career path).

2) Second, personal preferences play a huge role in what sorts of activities one pursues; some famous athlete’s clone might not wish to pursue a career in sports and henceforth would not suffer from comparisons.

3)
And, finally, we might notice that this is all a matter of degree; even sexually conceived children have "predetermination" in some moderate sense since they inherit their genetics from their parents. Those who are concerned about the pressures on some athlete’s clone should be equally concerned about the pressures on children born, through sexual reproduction, to two athletic parents.

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Infertile and Homosexual Couples

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1) Artificial insemination. If the man is infertile, the woman might be inseminated by the sperm of a third-party (this may take place within her body or in vitro).

2)
Surrogacy. If the woman is infertile, the couple may elect to inseminate the egg of a third-party with the sperm of the male; the third-party may then gestate or, depending on the nature of the infertility, the woman may gestate.
 
3) Adoption. The parents adopt a child that was born to another individual or couple.

4) Cloning. If the man is infertile, the genetic material of one of his somatic cells may be inserted into a denucleated egg; his wife may then gestate. If the woman is infertile, the same could happen; gestation may take place within her or through a surrogate.

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Why cloning might be an advantage?

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1 In adoption, there would be no genetic connection between the parents and their child; this might be undesirable and psychologically traumatic.

2)

Cloning also provides a reproductive strategy for lesbians, who could use their own genetic material without depending upon a male. Homosexual men could also reproduce asexually, though they would obviously need to acquire a gestational surrogate.

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What else does Pence think?

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personal liberty to reproduce is one that many of us think is fundamental; he thinks that any attempts for governments to intervene upon our reproductive liberties would be quite unjustified.


Pence thinks that reproductive rights support not only the choice to reproduce as often as we see fit, but also to reproduce in whatever manner we choose (including asexually).

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Harm Principle

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He endorses John Stuart Mill's "Harm Principle" which holds that intervention is only permissible to prevent harm to others; obviously cloning does not perpetrate any harm so restrictions are unjustified. (Pence also suspects that the legal right to privacy supports reproductive rights.)

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Conclusion

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So Pence concludes that most of the arguments against human cloning can be rejected, and fairly easily. Furthermore, cloning offers reproductive possibilities to those who might need them and is consistent with our reproductive rights.

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Objection to Pence

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1. The clone would not have a minimally satisfying life.

Laura Purdy has argued that reproduction is immoral if the child will not lead a "minimally satisfying life"; she argues that this criterion can be defended on either a consequentialist or contractarian approach. Accepting Purdy's suggestion, we could ask whether cloning would be immoral given the biological considerations that we have been discussing.
 
There is probably no reason to think that a clone with shortened telomeres would fail to have a minimally satisfying life. His life would be comparatively less desirable than a "normal" life in virtue of an earlier onset of senescence and, presumably, a shortened life span, but it is wildly implausible to think that this life would not be one worth living (especially from the point of view of the clone).

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Objection to Pence 2

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2. Cloning harms the clone.
Another potential response would be to argue that cloning harms the clone by subjugating him to various undesirable propensities. Some philosophers have argued against the logical coherence of this notion (as applied to "wrongful birth" more generally), and it is instructive to look at the argument.

One plausible account of harm is to apply a counterfactual (or comparative) criterion: X harms Y by doing A if and only if Y would be better off had X not done A. For example, I harm someone by punching him because he would have been better off had I not punched him.
 
So, we could ask, does cloning harm the clone? If so, the clone would have to have been better off had cloning not taken place. However, this condition can obviously not be met; had cloning not taken place, the clone would not exist at all, much less have a higher level of overall welfare. Therefore, cloning cannot harm the clone.
 

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Derek Parfit, The Same Number Quality Claim

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"If in either of two outcomes the same number of people would ever live, it would be bad if those who live are worse off, or have a lower quality of life, than those who would have lived."


To take his example, consider a fourteen year-old girl who chooses to have a child now rather than wait until she would be able to provide a better life for the child. Insofar as it is metaphysically impossible for that child to have been born substantially later, we must locate the wrongness of the girl's act not in its effect upon that child, but rather in the fact that she could have created some child with higher welfare had she waited.

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Hayflick limit

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Cells can only divide a certain number of times before the telomere is sufficiently shortened; this limit, around 50 cell divisions.

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Cloning and Senescence

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Under somatic cell nuclear transfer, the clonant would begin its existence with shortened telomeres and, as a consequence, it would senesce more rapidly (or, more accurately, earlier) than a child conceived through sexual reproduction since its cells would have already progressed toward the Hayflick limit.

Furthermore, the clone would have higher susceptibility to degenerative conditions, as well as shortened life expectancy. For example, Dolly—the first cloned mammal—developed lung cancer and arthritis at a comparatively early age and had to be euthanized by age six; most sheep live to be eleven to twelve years old.

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impersonal comparative account

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which would hold that cloning is wrong because the life of a clone would be worse (in some way) than that of a non-clone. Derek Parfit, for example, proposes The Same Number Quality Claim (Q): "If in either of two outcomes the same number of people would ever live, it would be bad if those who live are worse off, or have a lower quality of life, than those who would have lived."