Human Cloning—Good Or Bad?

In the 2000 futuristic movie The 6th Day Arnold Schwarzenegger's character, Adam Gibson, meets a clone of himself. In this future world the manufacturing of human clones is illegal. The cloning of animals and plants is common. The title of the movie is based upon the Bible's teaching that God created man in his own image (Gen. 1:27). Gibson concludes that God made man to have a soul and asks how both he and his clone can both have souls. The question is never answered, though both Adam and his clone survive all the action.

The antagonist is Michael Drucker, played by Tony Goldwyn. He is the billionaire owner of a cloning corporation and insists that through cloning humans may become immortal. He himself has been cloned several times, as have been his employees. In the cloning process all the memories and feelings of the previous existence are mysteriously transferred by an electronic device able to probe the brain as one gazes into it. That information is stored and transferred to the newly manufactured body. Voila! A new you.

Is there any factual basis for this fictional new world? Will scientists soon be able to clone humans? And if that is not yet possible, is it OK right now to clone replaceable parts of our bodies? What if we could eliminate the wait time and risky odds with traditional organ transplants? What if we could instead create customized cloned organs from our own cells?

According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network as of 8:09 a.m. this morning there were 114,300 candidates waiting for replacement organs, such as kidney, pancreas, liver, intestines, heart and lung. In February, 2012 4,494 transplants were performed. Of those nearly 80% came from deceased donors. So if you need a transplant your best hope of getting one is for somebody to die. In turn, the odds of your body rejecting a foreign transplant are great. That is why those receiving replacement organs must take drugs for the remainder of their lives to overcome immunological rejection.

Instead of transplantation a process for repairing organs exists. It is called therapeutic cloning. How is it performed? 

Therapeutic cloning is another phrase for a procedure known as somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). In this procedure, a researcher extracts the nucleus from an egg. The nucleus holds the genetic material for a human or laboratory animal. Scientists then take a somatic cell, which is any body cell other than an egg or sperm, and also extract the nucleus from this cell. In practical human applications, the somatic cell would be taken from a patient who requires a stem cell transplant to treat a health condition or disease. 

The nucleus that is extracted from the somatic cell in the patient is then inserted into the egg, which had its nucleus previously removed. In a very basic sense, it's a procedure of substitution. The egg now contains the patient's genetic material, or instructions. It is stimulated to divide and shortly thereafter forms a cluster of cells known as a blastocyst. This blastocyst has both an outer and inner layer of cells and it is the inner layer, called the inner cell mass, that is rich in stem cells. The cells in the inner cell mass are isolated and then utilized to create embryonic stem cell lines, which are infused into the patient where they are ideally integrated into the tissues, imparting structure and function as needed.

The cells removed are pluripotent. This means that they can give rise to all cells within the body except the embryo and can potentially treat diseases in any organ or tissue in the body. They do this by replacing the damaged and dysfunctional cells. Since your own genetic material is used, the risk of rejection is done away with. As a result the wait time for an organ transplant is dramatically reduced. Is that not wonderful?

Therapeutic cloning also enhances our understanding of stem cells and how they and other cells develop. The hope is that this understanding will lead to new treatments and cures for some of the common diseases affecting people today. This procedure also allows scientists to create stem cell therapies that target specific patients and perfectly match their conditions.

But now to the problems

The technique for therapeutic cloning described above is also the basis for cloning animals and, in theory, could be used to clone humans. Cloned animals will soon be slaughtered and marketed for their meat. The process is approved by the FDA. Food products from cloned animals are considered safe.

On the other hand, most researchers do not see it possible in the foreseeable future to produce a human clone that will develop to term. Why? Because of the many stresses placed on both the egg and the introduced nucleus. For example, Dolly the sheep was born after 277 eggs were used for SCNT. That created 29 viable embryos. Of those only three survived until birth and only one survived to adulthood. Theoretically the same outcomes will be produced if researchers attempt to clone humans. Yet who is to say that someone somewhere has not already produced Molly the human?  At this stage scientists have not been able to identify the exact reasons why so many experiments fail—as far as I can tell. Most commentators believe they eventually will, however.

Consider this: Doctor attempts to clone people -Apr 22, 2009

A controversial fertility doctor today told British reporters that he has cloned 14 human embryos and transferred 11 of them into the uteruses of four women. The physician, Panayiotis Zavos, who operates fertility clinics in Kentucky and Cyprus, says none of the embryos gave rise to successful pregnancies, but he is confident that baby cloning is just around the corner, The Independent reports.

"There is absolutely no doubt about it, and I may not be the one that does it, but the cloned child is coming," Zavos told The Independent, adding, "If we intensify our efforts we can have a cloned baby within a year or two."

Lewis D. Eigen, owner, BEA Enterprises, Inc. wrote in January, 2010, that the art and science of cloning techniques is readily available and relatively inexpensive. Virtually all scientists familiar with the principles and research believe that human reproductive cloning is possible. Its just a matter of time and technique. No fundamental scientific breakthroughs are needed. He suggests that it may already have happened. He continues, "We will probably have the time to make reasonable decisions if we start seriously thinking about, studying and debating the problem NOW! But there is no one who can assure society with any reasonable certainty that we will not have human clones among us in the next few years."

And, by the way, he says that we have all met clones already. They are called twins! My Mother was a twin, an exact duplicate of my Aunt. Of course there are differences:

1. Twins are born at the same time, but clones later. Clones are sometimes called delayed twins. 
2. Identical twins are the result of one egg dividing, whereas clones derive from a foreign egg
   imparted with the DNA of the donor. 
3. And twins occur naturally; clones do not. 

Lets take up the ethical and moral implications of all this in more detail next time. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome.