1885
Walter Sutton proves chromosomes hold genetic information.

1902
Hans Spemann divides a salamander embryo in two and shows early embryo cells retain all the genetic information necessary to create a new organism.

1952
A tadpole makes history as the first cloned animal.

1953
The structure of DNA is discovered.

1963
The term “clone” is formed.

1966
Establishment of the complete genetic code.

Baby Louise becomes the first child conceived through in-vitro (test-tube) fertilization.

1978
David Rorvik publishes his controversial novel “In His Image: The Cloning of a Man.” The fictional novel sparked debate on ethical issues regarding genetic manipulation and the development of biotechnology.

1980
U.S. Supreme Court rules live, human-made organisms are patentable material.

1987
The first mammals, sheep and cows, are cloned from embryonic cells. Animals cloned from embryonic cells contain genetic information from both parents because they are sexually fertilized.

1990
Human Genome Project begins.

1996
Dolly the Sheep, the first animal cloned from adult cells, is born.

1997
President Bill Clinton proposes a five-year moratorium on cloning.

Richard Seed announces his plans to clone a human.

1998
University of Hawaii scientists clone more than 50 mice from an adult cell.

Japanese researchers clone eight genetically identical calves from the biopsied cells of an adult cow. This experiment had a success rate of 80 percent, becoming the most effective clone to date.

2000
Tetra, a cloned monkey, is revealed by Oregon researchers.

A litter of five cloned piglets is produced by the same company that helped create Dolly the Sheep. The company says herds of cloned pigs could one day provide a genetically engineered source of organ transplants for humans.

Ethics and Morals

By Carrie Woodall
Skiff Staff

Cloning of humans may be just around the corner in scientific research regardless of the ethical dilemmas that could be involved according to the Feb. 19 issue of Time magazine.

Perspectives concerning cloning lie within how people think ethically, but scientific studies are increasing with little thought of how moral or immoral cloning techniques can be used, said Jack Hill, assistant professor of religion.

“A very strong ethical orientation today is utilitarianism arguing that people should act in such a way to promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people,” he said. “But that way you could end up either pro or con on the issue of cloning.”

A religious group called the Raelians uses this type of argument positively, saying they simply want to clone in order to help couples with fertility problems or to help homosexual couples have a child.

According to Time, the Raelians said they have the technology and the women willing to work towards cloning. Clonaid is the research service provided by the Raelians whose scientists expect to have placed the first cloned human embryo into a surrogate mother within the next month.

Professor of biology Rudolf Brun, who has cloned frogs in Geneva, said cloning of humans will eventually take place. The problem is the success rate for the procedure is not very high.

“The success rate is low, and we still don’t know quite why yet,” he said. “People are working on the biochemistry needed to (unblock) the genetic information so that the cloned embryo can do what a fertilized egg can do.”

Hill said on the negative side, cloning raises the possibility of all kinds of abuses.

“It could be used to weed out one or another of any certain (ethnic) group,” he said. “And are we interrupting what God, the creator, set in motion (by cloning)?”

A medical assistant at the Surrogate Pregnancy Center in southern California, Josie Gonzalez, said the clinic hasn’t heard anything about the recent developments in cloning and wouldn’t participate in the procedures.

“We are just here to help women get pregnant,” she said. “I think cloning is simply taking things too far, and I know our doctors here would agree.”

However, some people believe that cloning is just a further step in technology that God has allowed to exist.

Hill said there is a belief called process theology that says God is behind the evolution of cloning, but it is human responsibility as to how cloning is used.

Hugh Ross, in his article “To Clone or Not to Clone” said that like any tools humans develop, cloning can be used for good or for evil.

“It may be helpful to consider that God invented cloning,” he said. “He designed biological reproduction, and he made identical twins possible.”

Ted Klein, former chairman of the philosophy department, said people have the wrong idea about cloning because they think it is making an exact copy of a person.

“Cloning is not creating a carbon or photo copy of a person,” he said. “It is really like creating a delayed twin of someone.”

He said an additional ethical problem could arise if someone has a clone produced of themselves. Klein said he thinks this situation is not something the courts can’t handle. People will just find a way to cope with this like any other problem technology has presented in the past.

“I really don’t see how cloning can have any harmful effects on people at all,” he said.

Hill said another theological argument is that goodness comes from either a religious tradition, or it is commanded to be good by God. For example, the Catholic Church believes the soul enters the body at conception. If a clone is created, then the question is raised as to how each person is a unique child of God.

Brun said there are only two different opinions people can take if they are Catholics and are faced with the cloning issue.

They can either decide that cloning is completely against God and decide not to clone, or they can just accept that the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning the issue is wrong.

“Catholic doctrine is certainly worth studying, but it is also something worth thinking about and trying to update,” he said. “And cloning might just be one of these things to (initiate updating) of the doctrine.”

Although there are many ethical issues concerning cloning, Hill said he thinks there will be no problems with people continuing in their faith in God.

“Cloning cannot happen without an embryo, and we can’t get an embryo without an egg from a woman,” he said. “It all has to start somewhere. In a fundamental sense, we still can’t create human life even with cloning."

Carrie Woodall
c.d.woodall@student.tcu.edu