From: Nick Bostrom (nick@nickbostrom.com)
Date: Wed May 22 2002 - 00:08:17 MDT
I had an idea for technical fix to one common objection against therapeutic
cloning:
Some people object to the destruction of a human zygote on the basis that
it is a "potential human person". Egg and sperm, or the genetic materials
in our somatic cells are not regarded as potential human persons, since
they are not yet set on a course that in natural circumstances may lead to
the birth of a human person; that's why those entities don't have the same
moral status as a zygote, according to those (usually religious) people who
run this objection. (Note that somatic cells won't count as potential
persons even when reproductive cloning is perfected because somatic cells
are not "set on a course that in natural circumstances leads to a person".)
I was thinking that it would be possible to practise therapeutic cloning in
a way that overcomes this objection. The idea is to insert some kind of
biological "time bomb" in either the ovum or the sperm, so that the zygote
they form is set to self destruct before it becomes a human person. Since
neither egg nor sperm is a potential human person, it would not be immoral
to insert such a time bomb - one is not harming any potential human person.
Then the zygote itself will not be a potential human person either, since
it is not set on a course that may lead to the birth of a human person.
In concrete terms, the time bomb could consist in knocking out some gene
that is necessary for embryonic development. By selecting a suitable gene
to knock out, one could choose how far the zygote would develop before
spontaneously destroying itself. In therapeutic cloning, the zygote need
develop for no more than a couple of weeks or so, well before a human
person has emerged. I mentioned the idea to Robert Lanza (the vice
president for research at Advanced Cell Technology, a leading expert in
this field) and he said that this is something that could be done today.
I don't have much hope that this suggestion will win many converts to
therapeutic cloning; maybe it can merely be used to force those who object
to clarify what exactly it is they don't like. In any case, if one where to
use it to try to persuade, one should probably find a better wording than
"time bombs" and "self-destruction" (which brings to mind some sort of
horrendous Al Qaeda embryo). Maybe the way to describe it would be to say
that it is a proposal for producing a biological material that is not a
complete embryo, something that lacks certain essential parts so that it
has no potential to develop into a person. Just conceivably, that might
prove acceptable to some fraction of those who are against the
straightforward way of getting new embryonic stem cells from a person who
needs replacement tissue - maybe enough to tip a closely balanced pair of
scales of legislature opinion?
Nick Bostrom
Department of Philosophy, Yale University
New Haven, CT 06520 | Phone: (203) 500-0021 | Fax: (203) 432-7950
Homepage: http://www.nickbostrom.com
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