Dog Cloning Will Not "Recreate" Beloved Companion

A South Korean company is in the business of cloning dead dogs to "recreate" the beloved pets through reproductive cloning From the story:

The world's first pet cloning service is to offer animal lovers the chance to recreate their dead companions, it was announced today. South Korean company RNL Bio will work alongside scientists who created the first cloned canine.

A company spokeswoman said it was already working on its first order from an American who wanted a clone of her dead pit bull. The client, Bernann McKunney, of California, was very attached to the pet because it had saved her life during an attack by another dog. Kim Yoon said that ear tissue from the dog had been preserved at a US biotech laboratory before its death.DNA from the sample could now be used in an attempt to create a clone, she said, although the chances of success were about 25%.

RNL Bio is charging customers $150,000 (£75,000) for the clones, which clients pay only after they receive their new pet.

But it won't be the same dog. It might have the identical genetic makeup, but it will be an entirely different individual that might not even have the same markings or personality, since much of what an animal (or human) becomes results from envorinment beginning in the womb and on into life, as well as on genetics. Moreover, trying to clone the dog could become a form of abuse since reproductive cloning often leads to terrible defects and birth anomalies. It could also kill the birth mother since some cloned embryos develop into gigantic fetuses.

Besides, as they say, you can't go home again. That special bond that is so desperately missed was unique and cannot be replicated. Wouldn't it be better instead to give another dog that needs a loving home a chance at a good life instead of longingly trying to use the alchemy of biotechnology to recreate that which was a one and only?

Professor Hugh McLachlan Responds to My Critical Post

I heard today from Professor McLaclan, whose support for reproductive cloning I criticized here at SHS. Rather than put his comment to me in the comments section to the original post, where it might be missed, in fairness, I thought it best to present it here. Professor McLachlan writes:

Dear Wesley J Smith,

I was flattered to see that you comment on an article of mine in New Scientist on Human Cloning. I tried unsuccessfully to add the following comments onto your blog.

'The idea that cloning presents an "opportunity" for the nonexistent to become existent seems close to some religious doctrines about married couples having a duty to bring babies into the world.'

I do not think that married couples (or other ones) have a moral duty to have children. My point is this. It is one thing to do something that might risk causing injury to someone who might otherwise be healthy. It is something else to produce by cloning people who might be injured by the process but who would otherwise not be born. In this sense cloning is an opportunity not a risk for the clones involved.

'....non-existent beings have no right to come into existence, and if they don't, they will never know it, because there will never be a "they" to know that they don't exist.'

No one has a right to be born. When we are born, we are born out of good fortune. Life is a gift from God in my view.

'Moreover, notice the sheer indifference to the pain and suffering that would be caused, miscarriages, abortions, and human experimentation that would be involved in such an endeavor.'

I am far from indifferent to pain and suffering. My point is that the fact the clones might suffer is not a reason for making cloning illegal. We do not normally say that it should be illegal to have children if there is a risk (or even a certainty) that they will be unhealthy or deformed. Why should we say so in the case of cloning? For the sake of the clones? We could say this only if it is better not to be born than to be born deformed or unhealthy. People who are, in the normal way, born deformed or unhealthy do not generally say that they wish they had not been born.

I am not a materialist- far from it. I am not an advocate of human cloning. However, I do not think that the reasons put forward for making it a criminal offence are good reasons. Cloning will happen. It is better that it happens legally than illegally.

I am a bioethicist at Glasgow Caledonian University, not Glasgow University.

Best wishes,

Professor Hugh McLachlan
Centre for Ethics in Public Policy
Glasgow Caledonian University

I thank Professor McLachlan for his correspondence. I checked, and I didn't accuse him of being a materialist. I wrote that he seemed not to accept the intrinsic value of human life, a conclusion I drew from what remains his indifference to the life and death consequences that would flow from attempting human reproductive cloning. Life may or not be a "gift from God," but with cloning, it is a matter of human manufacture.

I have written extensively elsewhere as to why reproductive cloning should be outlawed. I subscribe to the points made by the President's Council on Bioethics' first publication Human Cloning and Human Dignity, which found unanimously that not only should reproductive cloning be prohibited, but also efforts toward learning how to do it safely as unethical human experimentation. It is noteworthy that while the Council was deeply divided over therapeutic cloning in that report, it was in total agreement about reproductive cloning.

I do not subscribe to the idea that it can't be stopped so it might as well be legalized. That seems an abdication to me. Besides, I believe reproductive cloning can be stopped. Learning how to clone efficiently will take many billions of dollars and tremendous effort on the part of the biotech sector, and even more to bring a cloned embryo to birth. Preventing all human cloning by law will inhibit the funds from being spent and serve as a powerful insensitive for the most talented scientists to make better use of their talents. Continuing to scorn reproductive cloning, I believe, will serve the same purpose, perhaps even more efficiently. I have noticed that with the exception of a few outriders, most scientists care very much about what their peers think of them, and the field as a whole is almost hypersensitive to criticism from the general public.

Preview of Coming Attractions: The Push to Permit Reproductive Cloning

The big secret that the media rarely address is that many bioethicists and bioscientists actually support reproductive cloning. Yes, yes, I know: Most scientific organizations, such as the NAS, and big-name bioethicists currently oppose permitting a cloned embryo to be implanted and gestated to birth. But this opposition isn't generally based on principled moral objections to cloning as a form of reproduction (replication). To the contrary: Many believe there is a fundamental right to reproduce by any means desired or necessary. Thus, objections among this camp are based on safety concerns. Currently, animal cloning is very inefficient, also leading to many miscarriages, birth defects, and the deaths of birth mothers.

Still, even now there are calls in some quarters to damn the safety concerns and go full speed ahead with permitting reproductive cloning. One such advocacy piece, "Let's Legalize Cloning," appeared in the July 18 New Scientist (no link available). Written by Glasgow Caledonian University bioethicist Hugh McLachlan, we are told that even safety should cause us little concern. He writes:

We know from animal cloning studies that the risks to the mother and the baby are likely to be very high, although they may diminish as the technique is perfected. Yet in other areas of reproduction (or life in general) safety alone is not seen as sufficient grounds to make something illegal. The risks should be explained to the prospective mother, and she should then have the right to decide for herself, as with any other medical procedure, whether to accept them.

The potential baby, of course, cannot give consent. There may be an increased risk of miscarriage or being born with a deformity, but for people born as a result of cloning, it is their only chance of life. Cloning is therefore not a risk but an opportunity. If you could only have been born as a clone, with the risks that entails, would you have wanted your life to have been prevented? I would say loudly: no.

The idea that cloning presents an "opportunity" for the nonexistent to become existent seems close to some religious doctrines about married couples having a duty to bring babies into the world. That point aside, non-existent beings have no right to come into existence, and if they don't, they will never know it, because there will never be a "they" to know that they don't exist.
Whew.

Moreover, notice the sheer indifference to the pain and suffering that would be caused, miscarriages, abortions, and human experimentation that would be involved in such an endeavor. To make cloning "safe" would require repeated creation of cloned embryos to study why gene expression is defective. It would require implantation and abortion to learn why some cloned fetuses develop with defects or in such a way as to endanger the birth mother. And it would require the surviving babies to be studied throughout their lives to determine whether they exhibit later resulting health or developmental difficulties. In other words, it would be to treat some people as experiments.

But when one's philosophy denies the intrinsic value of human life--and the primary impetus in "ethics" becomes anything goes to fulfill wants and desires--advocacy such as McLachlan's is entirely logical. This is why I don't view him as a fringe rider, but merely a candid harbinger of things to come.