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March 25, 2001
 

Most of us remember when Dolly the sheep was cloned four years ago. A British team shocked the world by announcing her birth after she reached seven months old. Just four years later, it is possible to clone a human. However, there are some serious problems involved.

Only 98% of animal cloning attempts are unsuccessful. Cloned animals have a congenital defect rate of 30% (the average human congenital defect rate is 2%). Cloned animals are often born abnormally and dangerously large. It took 277 unsuccessful tries before Dolly was cloned. This means 277 ewes struggling with miscarriage, aborted fetuses, difficult labor, and lambs that, for no obvious reason, died after birth. Currently, the best medical guess is that these same problems apply to human cloning. This is why researchers took seven months to tell the world about Dolly. They wanted to make sure she would live.

The first rule of medicine is the Hippocratic oath, "Do no harm." Considering these statistics, human cloning is unethical because of the harm currently done to participants. There are already hundreds of women who have volunteered to carry cloned embryos. Yet given the statistics, I can't see how their desire to volunteer has made the current problem any more ethical. Cloning harms its subjects.

Ian Wilmut, the researcher who created Dolly, has come out against human cloning. Another researcher working on animal cloning, Mark Westhusin explains "The wastage of eggs and the many spontaneously aborted fetuses may be acceptable when you're dealing with cats and bulls, but not with humans. Cloning is incredibly inefficient, and also dangerous."

A recent poll shows that 90% of Americans are against cloning. A supermajority of scientists and lay people strongly oppose cloning. In particular, the scientific community is concerned how the cloning debate could influence other controversial research, such as stem cell research.

I spoke to two research doctors in the past week. One said, "Cloning is a slippery slope. Period." The other said ruefully "I wish they would interview some normal scientists in articles about cloning." Regardless of what the supermajority believes, human cloning will move forward because there are a handful of lay people and scientists who are interested and able to provide private funding, and that is all it takes.

What I really wonder about is not the state of cloning now, but the state of cloning 20 years from now, when science has mastered cloning, when we hear about a 98% success rate, not failure rate. Cloning is a slippery slope because that day will come, and then what will we say?

Ian Wilmut cloned sheep because he wanted to create genetically improved sheep. In his attempt to help sheep farmers, livestock production, perhaps prevent the spread of diseases like foot and mouth disease, he and his researchers cloned an animal. They had no interest in helping Dolly's mother live forever, or replacing a lost lamb sibling, yet this combination is the murky territory they stumbled into for humanity, genetic engineering and immortality. When the success rate of human cloning is 98%, what will we say about genetic engineering and immortality for humans?

Some facts will help us understand exactly what is at stake. Essentially cloning takes place when an egg is extracted from a female animal or human. The nucleus of the egg is removed so that the egg no longer has its own DNA material. The egg is then placed next to cells that are to be cloned, from some donor. The egg and cells are electrically charge, which causes them to fuse (Can you believe that? It is strange but true. Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, was so ahead of her time). After the newly fused cells begin to multiply they create an embryo that can be placed in an animal or women's womb, and hypothetically grow to full term.

Just in that short explanation, I have horrified the Catholic Church, and concerned myself. The Catholic Church is adamantly opposed to cloning, believing that only God can choose and create life. Here's what concerns me about this paragraph: the DNA of the egg is removed, and the egg and other cells are electrically fused together.

Immediately thoughts come to mind about genetic engineering, and not Dr. Wilmut's idea of improved sheep, but Adolph Hitler's idea of choosing the "master race." It sounds fanciful but what if this technology had existed 60 years ago? The Nazis engaged in terrible scientific experimentation. You want to tell me that they wouldn't have also cloned? While this seems dramatic, we have to take serious issues like cloning to final conclusions. Cloning could be used to exclude someone's idea of unnecessary human traits like dark hair or homosexuality.

In its attempt to promote perfection and immortality, cloning reminds me of how limited, fallible, and mortal we are. As I have told you before, my definition of sin is wrong relationship or taking up too much space. Cloning has both of these failings. Cloning assumes superiority. Cloning attempts to defy mortality. Each of us is limited. Each of us will suffer. Each of us must die.

Cloning also bring us back to the question, what is the value of humanness? What makes us human? Is it longevity? Physical health? Physical characteristics? Compassion? Love? A few years ago I saw the Dalai Lama speak in Bloomington. He was asked for his thoughts about the genome project. He replied "If it will really create more compassionate human beings I am all for it." Will cloning create human beings that are more compassionate?

This past week I contacted a doctor and member of an ethics panel in a local hospital to ask him his thoughts about cloning. He said, "Cloning is a slippery slope. Period. . . It's just wrong. You can't clone a human being. There are too many of us already. It's a dangerous thing and totally possible." He also indicated that scientists have three reasons for research, 1) Goodness of science, 2) Money, and 3) Glory and fame. He was highly skeptical that human cloning had anything to do with the good of science and a lot more to do with money and glory and fame.

When I asked him for an ethical model used to address cloning, he said that it is a case of non-malfeasance vs. autonomy, essentially "do no harm" versus individual right. For him, cloning does much more harm to society than good to an individual, so it is unethical. His concerns for society were the implications of genetic engineering (He mentioned Nazis), a potential physical weakening of the human species through cloning efforts [Explain], and an unnatural avoidance of death.

As I listened to this doctor I thought about our own UU Purposes and Principles which say "We the member congregations of the UUA covenant to affirm and promote: a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; and the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process." "A free and responsible search for truth and meaning" says to me that each of us has autonomy; each of us can make our own decisions. The last phrase, though, "the use of the democratic process" tells me that we are also part of a larger society and must consider, sometimes bend to, the majority will and the good of the whole.

Our final principle is this "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." I was reminded of this when he spoke of the potential weakening of the human species. We are all connected, all individuals and past and future ages. And the web of life is delicate. We must do no harm.

In the course of our conversation, my medical contact spoke often about death. He said:

In our opening words for this morning, I quoted some words by the poet Mary Oliver:

We have become a death-free generation. We try to live without grief. We try to live without suffering. We try to live without death. And while no one should bear unlimited grief and suffering, we must all bear our share, and we must all die. This is part of what it means to be human. Suffering is a unique part of our humanity, and something I would not trade to live an unnatural or immortal life.

No, I am not coming out to you as a Christian Scientist who refuses medical treatment. I go to the doctor. I take medicine. I have had surgery. What I am saying is that "when the time comes to let life go, let it go." Death is not our enemy. Death is as sacred as life. Clinging to life will not save us from suffering, will not save us from death.

May Sarton writes:

If I can take the dark with open eyes

And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange

(For love itself may need a time of sleep),

And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,

Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep,

The strong root still alive under the snow,

Love will endure—if I can let you go.

Life ends. Love remains. Love creates human beings that are more compassionate. Our capacity for life and death mean that we are like all living beings on this earth. Our capacity for love and compassion mean that we are uniquely human. Of course, the great pain is that love and compassion will not always keep us warm at night, and they cannot protect us from suffering nor from death. As extraordinary as these gifts are, they will not save us from our fate as living beings. They may even heighten our losses.

When I read stories about people who want to participate in cloning I see the same thing repeatedly, here is a group of people who do not believe they can live with the pain of life and therefore want to defy death. Here is a sampling of individuals and families most likely to apply for cloning, families devastated by the death of a family member, couples with infertility problems (often premature or unexpected infertility), gay couples, and families concerned about the terminal illness of a member. These are all people in extraordinary emotional distress, struggling with issues of grief, suffering, death, love and compassion.

With all due respect, most of these families are hardly in a position to make a decision about cloning at this time. If you have ever prematurely lost a loved one, I want you think back about how crazy you felt, how betrayed, helpless, how much you doubted the benevolence of life or this world, how you raged against the injustice, how you questioned if you could go on living. These are the families trying to make decisions about cloning.

Listen to an excerpt of one story:

I have extraordinary sympathy for the Vuchetich family. The worst fear of every parent is the death of his or her child. It can seem like the end of life itself, and in some ways, it is. Two days after Matthew's death, in the midst of agonizing grief, his mother, who is a retired science teacher, thinks of cloning. Her other children understand the depth of her suffering, for it is also theirs, and they let her be. As time has gone on, Marion's determination to clone Matthew has begun to waiver.

In the depths of grief, Marion made one decision, but as she has adjusted to some of the loss and suffering, she can see it is not necessarily the best idea. What if cloning had been available in that very first year when Marion and her family were the most vulnerable?

Recently Dr. Panos Zavos, who left his work at the University of Kentucky in order to work on a human cloning project, explained his decision to participate. He says, "he has been flooded by emails from couples seeking to have cloned babies. He explains 'Other people say you're unethical. They said:"help me".' " Of course they said, "help me." However, cloning is probably not the help that they need. Most counselors tell individuals not to make any major decisions for a year after the death of a loved one. There is a reason for this. People struggling with grief are vulnerable.

Kahlil Gibran writes, "Your children are not your children. They are life's longing for itself." The story of Matthew reminds me that there is another person to be considered, the cloned individual who would never grow up to be exactly like Matthew, who could never fully replace Matthew. Matthew was special, sacred, unique. There is no substitute. A clone of Matthew would not be identical, and in the end, this could only bring more grief.

I have spent the majority of this sermon discussing cloning and now I want to inject a little medical perspective into this debate. I asked my medical ethics contact if the ethics panel at his hospital had ever discussed cloning. He said, "No, we do not have the time." I asked him if they had ever discussed fetal tissue donation and stem cell research. He said "A few times, but we have not yet had any cases." So then I asked him, what do you discuss?

He told me that most of their ethical cases come from the OB/Gyn floor and the medical floor. He told me that most cases involve life and death decisions such as feeding tubes, pain medication, and women in labor who do not want the fetus treated or blood drawn, for religious reasons, even if the life of the fetus is endangered. The basics of these issues are so similar to cloning, issues of life and death, grief and suffering, love and compassion. I wonder if we educated ourselves better about these current, pressing medical ethics issues, if we would have a better base to make decisions about cloning.

He also told me that distributive justice is a frequent topic at meetings. Essentially distributive justice is the question of who gets health care and how much each individual should receive. My contact told me that distributive justice versus autonomy is the medical ethics issue of the 1990's and today. Medicine can do so much more and it costs so much more. Should we spend $1,000,000 to treat one person with money and access to health care while an uninsured family receives no care at all?

I spoke to another doctor about cloning and distributive justice and he said to me:

Clearly, here's another issue to add to cloning. Why spend several million to clone an individual when several million could be used to treat AIDS or tuberculosis or hepatitis. Beyond that, there is a real struggle going on within the health care community, how do we decide who gets what care?

In some ways I see the current cloning debate as a temporary smokescreen that obscures larger, more pressing issues, that if we actually took the time to consider, might help us decide issues like cloning. But first, we would actually have to look at the bowels of health care in America, and I do mean bowels.

My medical contact told me that most physicians are reluctant to talk about distributive justice because they have been taught to be patient advocates. By its very name, distributive justice tells us that patient rights aren't the only rights. What about justice? What about the good of the society as a whole?

I have no answer for the problem of distributive justice. Our former President could not find an answer. But I do know that it is a problem. The debate between cloning and distributive justice is not an either or proposition. I am grateful for the opportunity cloning gives us to reconsider a host of medical ethics questions. Unfortunately, the debate over cloning is shallow.

In my mind, the larger ethical questions about cloning are not relevant to cloning today, but cloning 20 years from now when the success rate is high. Medical ethics is always a slippery slope. How do we as a public educate ourselves to make good choices before we are in a position of emotional distress, before the medical technique is just easy or available?

I encourage all of us to explore the facts. I was interested to find that within the United States we are in the midst of a five-year moratorium on federally funded human cloning research. I am very impressed by the restrictions on stem cell research, which prevent the exchange of money and coercion in the acquisition of stem cells. I wish the general public shared more of this knowledge, and interest in long-term repercussions.

I wish we could speak of death as we do of life. I wish we could accept that death is as sacred as life, that suffering is part of our humanity, and that love and compassion make us uniquely human, not longevity, not physical health, not physical characteristics. It is our knowledge of suffering, love and compassion that distinguishes us, and yet this knowledge cannot save us. We must act for the good of all, especially in the depths of our suffering.

I want to close with words by Chief Seattle. He spoke these words in 1854, after the American government requested that his people move onto reservations.

In our struggle and suffering to live and die, may we remember that we are but one strand with the power to sustain or ruin the web of the whole.

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