Cloning: Ethical Issues

The premise that a clone is an exact duplicate of another individual is flawed, and so if the intent of cloning is to create such a copy, it simply will not work. For example, the tips of chromosomes, called telomeres, shorten with each cell division. A clone's telomeres are as short as those from the donor nucleus, which means that they are "older" even at the start of the clone's existence. DNA in the donor nucleus has also had time to mutate, that is to say, it has had time to undergo modification from its original sequence, thus distinguishing it genetically from other cells of the donor. A mutation that would have a negligible or delayed effect in one cell of a many-celled organism, such as a cancer-causing mutation, might be devastating if an entire organism develops under the direction of that nucleus. Finally, the clone's mitochondria, the cell organelles that house the reactions of metabolism and contain some genes, are those of the recipient cell, not the donor, because they reside in the cytoplasm of the egg. Mitochondrial genes, therefore, are different in the clone than they are in the nucleus donor. The consequences of nuclear and mitochondrial genes from different individuals present in the same cell are not known, but there may be incompatibilities.

Perhaps the most compelling reason why a clone is not really a duplicate is that the environment affects gene expression. Cloned calves have different color patterns, because when the animals were embryos, the cells that were destined to produce pigment moved in different ways in each calf. For humans, consider identical twins. Nutrition, stress, exposure to infectious diseases, and other environmental factors greatly influence our characteristics. For these reasons, cloning a deceased child, the application that most would-be cloners give for pursuing the technology, would likely lead to disappointment.

Bioethical concerns over cloning may be moot, because the procedure is extremely difficult to do. Dolly was one of 277 attempts; Cumulina, the first cloned mouse, was among 15 liveborn mice from 942 tries. Cloning so often fails, researchers think, because it is not a natural way to start the development of an animal. That is, the DNA in a somatic cell nucleus is not in the same state as the DNA in a fertilized ovum. The donor DNA in cloning does not pass through an organism's germ line, the normal developmental route to sperm or egg, where gene activities are regulated as a new organism develops.

Ethical objections to human cloning are more philosophical than they are practical. The very idea of cloning assumes that our individuality can be understood so well that we can duplicate it. If human cloning ever became a reality, that this is not true would become evident. After all, we are more than a mere collection of genes.