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Cloning too complex for simple solutions
© St. Petersburg Times Revised March 21, 2002 WASHINGTON -- Ahhhh! Spring flowers are budding in the nation's capital, and the air is filled with talk about future breakthroughs in biotechnology. President Bush's Council on Bioethics is meeting regularly. Pharmaceutical company lobbyists are touting their latest miracle discoveries. Activists are engaged in talking to members of Congress. And well-meaning scholars are holding conferences on such topics as "Redesigning Humans." "We're going to be able to exert control over our evolutionary future," UCLA professor Gregory Stock breezily tells an audience at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank. "It is not space that is our next frontier, it's ourselves." Issues related to biotechology arrived in Washington a few years ago disguised in sheep's clothing. The sheep was Dolly, a clone whose birth in Scotland set American politicians' teeth on edge. There is little that elected officials fear more than a highly complex scientific issue with moral overtones. The first instinct of many politicians, particularly conservatives, was to simply ban human cloning and everything else even vaguely related to it. Even President Bush, whose usual constituency opposes tinkering with biology, could not embrace a simplistic solution. He tried to fashion a compromise by overruling federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells beyond those that are already being used. But Bush's proposed compromise was quickly eclipsed by developments. Now there is a growing realization that biotechnological breakthroughs probably cannot be controlled with simple political directives. People interested in the issue are breaking into two camps -- those who want to ban cloning designed to replicate human beings and those who would also ban therapeutic cloning, or the use of embryonic stem cells in pursuit of cures for debilitating neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease. Leon Kass, a University of Chicago professor and chairman of the president's bioethics council, says that even though he opposes both kinds of cloning, his 18-member group is going to lay out a variety of options. Kass' reasoning is primarily philosophical. "The power behind these technologies changes the meaning of what it is to be human," he recently told the Washington Post. "They are seductive. They don't come at once. They come piecemeal. You get used to them without thinking." Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., author of a bill that would ban both therapeutic and human cloning, sees it more as an extension of the debate over abortion, which he opposes. Already approved by the House, his solution will be considered by the Senate in the near future. Liberals and moderates seem to prefer an alternative approach embodied in a bill offered by Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa. It would ban human cloning, but not therapeutic cloning. Kennedy's reasoning is practical. Too many lives depend on the discoveries that could be derived from therapeutic cloning. "The day we are able to unlock a cure for Alzheimer's," says Kennedy, "we're going to empty three-fourths of the nursing beds in Massachusetts." The debate gets more sophisticated and complex when you get away from Capitol Hill. At the CATO Institute forum, neither UCLA's Stock nor Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins University seem to think that research can easily be restricted. If it is not done in the United States, it will likely be done elsewhere, depriving American scientists of their role as leaders in the field. Stock says individuals should be allowed to decide whether they want to participate in biotechnology experiments designed to enhance human beings. Fukuyama, a member of the president's council who is best known for his provocatively named book, End of History and the Last Man, thinks that biotechnology must be strictly regulated by the government. "Congress will draw a distinction between therapy and enhancement," he predicts. "Medicine is to treat people, not to create superhumans." After attending the Stock-Fukuyama debate last Friday, I caught a taxi back to my office. Listening to a commercial on the radio, I realized these issues may not be quite as fresh as they seem. The commercial was peddling a new herbal mixture that promises to improve your cognitive abilities. "Your brain will absorb information like a sponge," the announcer said. Just call an 800-number and it can be yours for only $29.95.
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