Smash hit

Still, an embryo, whether created by sex, fertility treatment or cloning, represents the first stage in the long, complex and magical process that has so far created every human being on Earth. That has convinced many, including George W. Bush, that all cloning poses uncomfortable ethical dilemmas. Human reproductive cloning — carrying a cloned embryo to term — threatens the sanctity of the individual. There is a widespread consensus that using cloning to make babies is inherently wrong as well as medically unsafe. The vast majority of cloned animals abort. The dissected corpses of those who survive are a stomach-churning deterrent to others — they have mutant organs, contorted limbs and suffer from “large offspring syndrome”. The idea of a grotesquely deformed human baby means that producing the first human clone remains the least sought-after first in medicine.

But therapeutic cloning has split the international community. Stem cells derived from embryonic clones of a patient are genetically identical to the patient and will therefore not be rejected. If Madonna’s liver begins to pack up, the stem cells culled from her embryonic copy could be placed in her ailing liver and would take up the hepatic baton. But to extract the cells, the Madonna embryo would be sacrificed.

To scientists, the potential ends — cures for diseases — justify the means. Moreover, there are already 400,000 unused embryos sitting in freezers in American fertility clinics. Instead of throwing them away, they say, why not see if they can be used to cure disease?

For staunch pro-life advocates, however, there is something unthinkable about embryos, symbolic of the beginning of life, being churned out and carved up to sustain those at the end of theirs. The organisation Americans to Ban Cloning, for example, declares that all human cloning should be banned because “(it) would create a class of human beings who exist not as ends in themselves, but as the means to achieve the ends of others”.

There is also the “slippery slope” argument — that if scientists are given the go-ahead to produce cloned embryos for therapy, one of those embryos will inevitably find its way into a woman’s womb. As a result, the numbers for and against a total cloning ban have been so close to call that it has come down to who is in the UN chamber on voting day. Last year, Siegel says, 100 out of 191 countries were ready to prohibit all cloning. It was only the absence of several pro-ban delegates that led to it being temporarily derailed.

Dolly’s creator, Ian Wilmut, can’t see how the UN can confuse two different practices, and doesn’t accept the slippery-slope argument. “I prefer the stance that it is logically and legally quite easy to frame things to say that to produce an embryo to produce cells is acceptable, but to transfer that embryo to a uterus is not. I would be shocked if any British clinician put a cloned embryo into a patient. That wouldn’t happen.”

The debate is complicated even further by another avenue of research — adult stem-cell research. Some studies suggest that certain types of cell, such as bone marrow cells, found in adult patients have a chameleon-like potential to turn into useful tissue. However, by virtue of the fact that they come from an adult, they have already lost some of their pliability. To say otherwise, Wagner insists, is simply untrue: “I can state unequivocally that they don’t obviate the need for embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells cannot do everything; embryonic stem cells are still the gold standard.”

Wilmut, who says that cell therapy has the potential to transform medicine, is at peace with the idea of cloning embryos for judicious medical use. Cloned embryos are most useful within the first week of life, when specialisation has not yet begun. At this stage, the embryo — technically called a blastocyst — is a bundle of fewer than 100 cells. It is emphatically not, Wilmut insists, the same as a baby: “I have a grandson who is two months old. To think of a blastocyst as equivalent to a foetus or my newborn grandson is just absurd. The key aspect of development is the ability to be aware, to think and to feel, and so on. A blastocyst does not have those attributes, and that’s why I would draw the line there.

“I personally wouldn’t like to work with foetal cells. Depending on their stage, there could possibly be consciousness. Don’t ask me where the line is because I don’t know, but I do know that six or seven days, when most blastocysts are taken, is well before the line.”

Wagner makes the same point: “Some people believe that we are destroying babies when in fact we are talking about between 8 and 50 cells. I think that the public overall is in favour of embryonic stem-cell research, but we hear mostly from the pro-life contingent. We must make it clear that if you believe in this, you need to stand up for it. You must make your voice heard because you may lose the opportunity of using this potentially life-saving therapy.”

People’s voices are beginning to be heard. Hollywood has made stem-cell research its cause célèbre, with Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, its figureheads. Only weeks before her husband’s death from Alzheimer’s disease, Nancy Reagan used one such glittering occasion to berate George W. Bush for his conservative approach to stem-cell research.

Even anti-abortionists are among signatories to a letter to the American President urging him to relax federal legislation governing stem- cell research. Says Frommer: “Among the 206 members of Congress who signed it were more than 30 pro-life members who understand that this is not an abortion issue. Part of being pro-life is trying to do what you can for the living.”

Are you in favour of embryonic stem-cell research?
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