Moral experts absent from show

Do you have any ethical or moral qualms about human cloning?

Just about everyone does, from the Pope down to a grade-schooler learning about the birds and the bees. Even Ted Koppel and Robert Krulwich of ABC News do, so it's too bad they didn't consult experts to deal with them.

John Paul II has called cloning attempts "dangerous experiments" which show a lack of respect for life. He also supported a statement signed by 400 Italian teachers of biological sciences, who condemned human cloning as a method of human reproduction. The statement said human cloning represents an attack on the biological individuality of the person and warned that the practice risks being exploited economically.

Among the Church's concerns are the human beings discarded during cloning experiments when embryos are created, studied and then disposed of.

Science and morality

"They...feel no compassion for the human beings who [are] produced through cloning and sacrificed," he said. Cloning "represents a dominion by man over man and includes a kind of desire to replace God's plans in an arbitrary...way, creating man in man's image and likeness."

President Clinton is so concerned about the ethical and moral problems that he urged Congress to ban such experiments because the techniques involved are "untested and unsafe and morally unacceptable." Nineteen European nations have already signed an agreement to prohibit genetic replication of human beings.

LeRoy Walters, director of Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics, has pointed out that among the unknowns of cloning are the long-term effects on genes and chromosomes.

Cloning special

For 60 minutes, Krulwich examined what cloning is in general, what stages science has reached in its pursuit of this goal for humans and what advantages it might bring. He and his guests also raised some serious moral and ethical questions:

* If parents can choose the genetic makeup of their children, will some types of people cease to exist because they are seen as unattractive?

* Cloning will cost a lot of money. Is it fair for rich people to have healthy and intelligent children guaranteed the new-fashioned way while poorer people continue to hope for the best "doing what comes naturally"?

* How many human embryos will be washed down sinks in medical offices as parents decide which clone to implant in the mother's womb?

Missing persons

"Nightline in Primetime" spent an hour on the topic of human cloning without seeking input from a major group of experts: those who contemplate the moral and ethical issues surrounding the issue. Imagine doing the show without consulting scientists!

As the hour closed, Koppel asked Krulwich what he would do. Krulwich said that despite his worries, he would okay human cloning. When the question was reversed, Koppel declined to answer. It would have been far more enlightening to hear from people who have thought about this topic longer and harder -- and from their perspective as moral theologians and medical ethicists.

(09-09-99) [[In-content Ad]]