The Demise of Language and the Rise of Cloning

Mar 22, 2017 by

by Michael Wee, Public Discourse:

On both sides of the Atlantic, human cloning for pregnancy has been stealthily gaining ground in the last few years, in part due to cultural perceptions and words that obscure reality.

Twenty years ago, in an essay entitled “The Wisdom of Repugnance,” Leon R. Kass warned that human cloning could one day simply be another option “with virtually no added fuss,” alongside IVF and other assisted reproduction techniques. Unknown to many, such a scenario is already materializing. In 2015, Britain became the first country to legalize a cloning technique for human pregnancy known as pronuclear transfer (PNT). Currently, it is only permitted for women with mitochondrial disease, which is passed on maternally. Last month, the first birth of a baby created using PNT—notably, not to prevent the inheritance of mitochondrial disease, but to “treat” infertility—was announced in Ukraine.

America is not far behind. Last February, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report saying that conducting clinical investigations of two “mitochondrial replacement techniques”—including PNT—is “ethically permissible” under certain conditions.

But how did all this happen, given that the thought of cloning still inspires repugnance? Where are the mass protests and the “Stop Human Cloning Now” picket signs? More importantly, how can we resist these developments? These questions are worth considering, since the stealthy rise of cloning holds valuable lessons about how science is perceived and what that means for ethical and public policy discussion.

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