THE LUDDITES have been at it again. This month Ian Wilmut won a licence to clone embryos for research into motor neurone disease (MND). No sooner had he done so, the critics were out, denouncing his work as “Frankensteinian”. Professor Wilmut was the man who created Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, nine years ago. Inevitably, the doom-mongers warned us about the slippery slope from cloned sheep to cloned human beings. “All human cloning is intrinsically wrong and should be outlawed,” said Julia Millington of the ProLife Alliance.

But Professor Wilmut’s research has nothing to do with creating new human beings, and everything to do with improving existing lives. He wants to take DNA from someone with MND, implant it into a human egg from which the genetic material has been removed, and let it develop into an embryo. After six days the embryo would be harvested for stem cells which, unlike normal adult cells, can grow into any kind of tissue. He hopes to turn them into nerve cells with MND, allowing him to study the development of the devastating muscle-wasting disorder, and perhaps find a cure.

Critics worry that such therapeutic cloning techniques involve the creating and disposing of human beings. Professor Wilmut will not be manipulating a live being, but a ball of undifferentiated cells. There is also nothing new in creating and disposing of embryos. It happens routinely in IVF treatment. If this is acceptable in creating life, why not in saving life too? The trouble is that the very idea of cloning raises moral hackles. Most people would probably accept scientific research into embryos if it could help to cure terrible diseases. But the idea of cloning new human beings seems a step too far. By confusing therapeutic cloning (the use of embryonic cells for research and therapy) with reproductive cloning (the creation of new human beings) the Luddites win public backing for their irrational stance.

But is there anything wrong with creating cloned human beings? That is not what Professor Wilmut or any other respectable scientist wants to do. But if they did, would it be immoral? There are three main objections to reproductive cloning. The first is that in creating copies of people we undermine human dignity and personal identity. “The cloned individual,” suggests the philosopher Leon Kass, “will be saddled with a genotype that has already lived.” Any cloned human child will be the genetic twin of the person who is the cell donor. But to have the same genome is not to be the same person. Genes influence our personalities and abilities, but do not determine who we are or how we behave. After all, natural clones — identical twins — often differ in everything from their fingerprints to their political convictions.

The second objection is that cloning turns human beings into means, not ends. Cloned children, critics argue, will simply be the means for their parents’ self-aggrandisement. This may be true, but it is also true for many children born in conventional ways. Thirty years ago opponents of IVF technology also argued that “test-tube” babies were being treated as objects. Anyone who has witnessed the huge emotional commitment that couples have to invest in IVF treatment recognises that such children are very much wanted. The same is likely to be true for a cloned child.

Finally, critics claim that cloning is unnatural. “From time immemorial,” argues the American writer Jeremy Rifkin, “we have thought of the birth of our progeny as a gift bestowed by God or a beneficent nature.” According to Mr Rifkin, “the coming together of sperm and egg represents a moment of surrender to forces outside of our control.” The whole point of any medical intervention, from taking an aspirin to heart surgery, is to ensure that human beings are not at the mercy of forces outside our control. If we were to look upon human conception as simply a gift from God, then contraception, abortion and IVF would all have to be ruled immoral. Cloning is no more and no less unnatural than IVF, which most people are happy to accept.

Only one argument against cloning has any substance. Most specialists caution against any attempt to clone human beings today because the procedure is insufficiently safe. Many cloned embryos show abnormalities, and cloned animals often die prematurely. The question of safety, however, is not an ethical one. Ethical injunctions are absolute; under no circumstances should we attempt to clone a human being. Safety considerations are relative: when the technology has improved, we can proceed.

As it happens, I can think of no pressing reason why anyone should want to be cloned. The standard means of reproduction is easier, cheaper and a lot more fun. But that is beside the point. There is nothing immoral about cloning human beings. There is, however, something deeply repugnant about a campaign that seeks to block the advancement not just of reproductive technology, but also of research that could save thousands of lives.

Opponents of cloning like to present the debate as one between an immoral science hell-bent on progress at any cost and those who seek to place scientific advance within a moral framework. But what is moral about prolonging unnecessary suffering by creating obstacles to medical advance? And what can be more ethical than attempting to alleviate suffering through the development of new techniques? It is time we turned the ethical tables on the Luddites and their immoral arguments.

Kenan Malik is author of Man, Beast and Zombie

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