Experts say history proves it: Scientists will clone even if President Bush and Congress forbid it.
Cloning may not happen in the United States, but it will happen in other countries if an anti-cloning bill is passed in May. That's the consensus opinion following Bush's speech Wednesday that reiterated his stance against human cloning.
[Hermit: And how prepared is the US to deal wioth the results of this ludicrous idea? Does the "Global Village Idiot" imagine that the US is going to maintain a leading position in genetics after outlawing research? Or does he just not realize that this is important?]
In his speech, Bush evoked images of organ farms, made-to-order children and desperate women pressured into selling their eggs. His comments may have been spurred by recent news that an Italian researcher claims that a woman in his cloning program is eight weeks pregnant.
[Hermit: Perhaps the trouble is, that not having an intellect, all he is left with to attempt to justify his beliefs is emotion.]
"Our Congress acting on that (bill) will have absolutely no affect on what they're doing out on a boat somewhere in the Mediterranean," said Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.
"I think there is every reason to believe that if passed, this kind of prohibition would not be effective," added Sean Tipton, a spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). "I think that thousands of years of human experience have shown us that governments cannot bottle up human progress, even when you want to."
[Hermit: But it is rather rough on the researchers who are being victimized for their success by battalions of baffled believers, having difficulty keeping up with a rapidly changing world.]
One case in point is Liz Catalan, who wants her own genetic baby so badly that she would go wherever she had to in order to clone either herself or her husband.
"If they called me right now and said, 'We're paying for everything and giving you the chance to have your own genetic child,' I would be on a plane so fast it's not even funny," she said.
Doctors say Catalan, 41, has few if any reproductive eggs. She's worried about the health risks involved in cloning, but she's willing to take them, and to go wherever she needs to in order to do it.
"People are still going to do it," Catalan said. "They're just going to go to different countries."
Many compare the situation to the pre-Roe v. Wade days in the United States. Despite abortions being illegal, women had them anyway and sometimes the consequences were tragic.
At this point, most ethicists and researchers believe reproductive cloning should be at least temporarily banned because it's not safe.
[Hermit: This is a gross distortion. These two groups have to be seperated to return a valid response. If 20,000 philosophers argue that this is impossible, but five geneticists do it, who is correct?]
In animal studies, many creatures were born malformed or they developed severe health problems at various points in their development. Dolly, the famous cloned sheep, has arthritis, and many cloned calves die soon after birth, are dramatically oversized, or have intestinal blockages or immune deficiencies.
[Hermit: And as reported here recently, this problem has been identified and can be resolved. But the development of scientific responses to problems is dependent on research. Research which the US argues should be illegal.]
But several groups like the ASRM believe that the ban should be temporary and revisited in five years.
"Right now it's clearly unsafe to try in people," Tipton said. "That may not always be the case."
[Hermit: But how is 5 years without experiments going to change this?]
Bush and others who are against therapeutic cloning, a procedure that would not create a new human being and that some researchers think could lead to treatments for human diseases, believe therapeutic cloning is a slippery slope toward reproductive cloning. Both practices, they reason, should be permanently banned.
[Hermit: Constitutionally, belief should not affect the decision. In reality it will. And this banning of research and the fruit of research is condemning millions to real suffering, in contrast to Mr. Bush's theoretical objections.]
The bill in question, S 790, written by Sen, Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), would criminalize all cloning with a fine of up to $1 million and 10 years in prison. The House passed an almost identical bill (H.R. 2505) in July 2001, so, if the Senate passes the anti-cloning bill with the vote expected in May it would essentially become law.
[Hermit: Was Kansas the state where they outlawed the teaching of evolution? I guess now we know why. It is worth noting that few first-offender murderers or armed robbers receive sentences like this. And naturally, this could only happen in the case of a first offense. No scientist having spent this time in jail will find a place in a laboratory (in the US) again. Then again, we do not regulate "Trailer Trash" - and they tend to take no trouble whatsoever with their breeding selections. Why ever not. Perhaps wombs should be licenced too. It would certainly make more sense than these draconian regulations and penalties.]
Opponents of the Brownback bill hope that alternatives proposed by senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) will be approved that would allow United States agencies to regulate therapeutic cloning. Otherwise, they say, the science is out of the country's purview altogether.
"The best way to control the research is to fund it by the federal government, because then you create rules," Kahn said.
In fact, nuclear transfer (the technical term for cloning) is already under the purview of the FDA's rules on biologics and tissue transplantation. It's regulated from the moment someone retrieves a human egg, said R. Alta Charo, professor of law and medical ethics at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison.
[Hermit: Right here, we can identify exactly where the problem arises. People whose speciality is not cloning making learned comments on the subject. Whether for or against the issue, they are still not subject experts. And it seems that the United States has a lot more of such experts than they have subjects.]
"Every experiment will be overseen by a review board whose sole purpose is to ensure that women are not coerced, exploited, or placed at undue risk when their eggs are used in research," Charo said.
The review boards would also be responsible for ensuring that no one tries to make a cloned child.
[Hermit: Yes right. What are you thinking about today. These good people need not be concerned. There will be no geneticists capable of such work left in the US if these laws are implemented.]
"In short, we have a comprehensive system of protections," she said.
Like reproductive cloning, therapeutic cloning will also go offshore if made illegal, experts say, which will cause an unfortunate brain drain for U.S. industry and academia.
[Hermit: The two are inextricably linked. A ban on the one will effectively result in a ban on the other.]
"Several countries including England have said they'll allow the research to move forward," Tipton said. "The best American minds will go over there."
[Hermit: Actually, a remarkable number of the "best American minds" have seen the writting on the wall - and have already left or are in the process of doing so. I wonder how America feels about being a second rate country in a field which it once lead. Relieved?]
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
You see, the real danger of this ban on cloning goes much deeper than just taking the US out of the race, which I consider to be a significant danger indeed. The real danger is that when something truly desirable to humans is made illegal, it doesn't stop it from happening, it just makes those who do it into criminals, and puts control of the use into the hands of crime bosses.
Lets get a clue shall we? Do we really want renegade private enterprise to have the cutting edge of this technology? It will if the cloning ban is passed.
Re:Bush's Clone Ban Plan Irrelevant
« Reply #2 on: 2002-05-31 15:37:08 »
I for one find Bush's move to ban therapuetic cloning, an evil move that should die. On the other hand, I find Bush's move to ban therapuetic cloning, an evil move that should die; we must, however, come to terms with this quickly, and understand that this does not by any stretch of the imagination leave the United States out of the possibility of front runner status in other areas of biotechnology. We can basically do whatever we like in terms of experimenting with animals. And indeed many possible areas of genetic medicine and genetic engineering with humans remain wide open. And where we may have unfortunately limited ourselves in terms of human medicinal uses, we can perhaps start looking toward genetically engineering other non-human species in ways that may in due time create competant sister species to humans. A lot of these techniques will also have relatively easy crossover applications to use on human genetic lines once the politicians finally pull their heads out of their asses.
I think the American scientific community, in order to stay competitive, needs to - in addition to opposing this ban with all of its political might - look toward many other frontier applications areas of cloning and genetic engineering research and technology, on non-human and/or human strains that do not conflict with legal prohibitions. I think this will probably happen, but I also know how political fights can sometimes induce tunnel vision on the participants.
hypocracy of the religious-right
« Reply #3 on: 2002-06-13 03:47:39 »
I remember reading Time magazine (keeping an eye on the enemy) and finding an article that summoned my bile. The pro-ban side of this debate often note that Human Cell Cloning (HCC) can lead to some frightening Brave New World-esq scenarios (note: its interesting to see just how much Brave New World is cited in this debate). The frightening part is human life being used as a commodity, to make money.
But IMO, it is not frightening to use human life (in an embryonic stage) to cure fully-formed and self-aware people that are suffering.
The religious right seem to be concerned with the commodification of human life at its very earliest stages. This is amazing hypocrisy based on nothing but a dogmatic religious interpretation. The religious right are concerned that mass-producing embryos to further medical science and the quality of people's lives will create "what are in essence stem-cell factories". So they are more concerned with a factory that creates and stores human cells than a factory that keeps and slaughters animals in miserable and painful conditions (the factory farm, the abattoir), or the factory that keeps people working in miserable, boring, repetitive and painful conditions for a pittance (the industrial factory). I've worked in five factories, all deeply unpleasant. I've seen a slaughterhouse, a factory farm, both horrifying. A stem-cell lab full of mindless, useful human cells is no comparison.
The religious right feel that HCC "involves using people as a means; it turns human life into a commodity and fosters a culture of dehumanisation." Think about that for a moment. So why aren't these people against war? exploitative labour? animal experimentation? These are the things that use people (and other animals) as a means, as a commodity, these are the things that dehumanise.
Already nightmarish images have been evoked - headless bodies living a twilight life, waiting to be harvested, organs floating in jars, twitching babies on racks waiting to be opened up, used, drained and discarded to the hungry vampires and dogs outside. All nonsense. HCC doesn't mean growing babies or organs in this way. It's about petri dishes and microscopes. It's about using stem cells to repair damage to organs - more like a skin graft than a transplant.
These people fear that our culture will turn into a predatory, exploitative monster which tears babies apart for their fresh, pure organs and baths in their blood to keep the sin young and wrinkleless. They do not look at what they support, they do not examine what they consider to be "good" and fine, that their lives are already en-mired in horror. They do not realise that they are already living in this world of brutalisation and human usury and their concerns are misdirected. Their hypocrisy - suffer the living, save the half-living, is hidden by the most sentimental stance - the defence of "life itself", not in the form of thinking, feeling, autonomous people who have lives and loves and hopes, but in the form of mere cells (not even a complete embryo) whose potential to change can cure the suffering of thousands, if not millions.
Dear scientists: come to Europe before "pro-life" bomb you in your labs.
The pro-life side is so often pro-death, pro-war, pro-capital punishment. Perhaps the purpose of pro-life is like fishing? Throw 'em back when they're small and young, then get 'em when they're bigger.
Re:Bush's Clone Ban Plan Irrelevant
« Reply #4 on: 2002-06-14 21:40:17 »
[Walpurgis] I remember reading Time magazine (keeping an eye on the enemy) and finding an article that summoned my bile. The pro-ban side of this debate often note that Human Cell Cloning (HCC) can lead to some frightening Brave New World-esq scenarios (note: its interesting to see just how much Brave New World is cited in this debate). The frightening part is human life being used as a commodity, to make money.
[Jake] One thing to remember in responding to this argument; Human Life IS a commodity. As such we SHOULD wish to increase the quality and value of it. I personally want to make the most out of my life, and in order to do so, I MUST look at myself as a commodity to some extent. To do otherwise, or resist this PoV is to do myself great diservice and harm. Money IS part of it, but wealth is so much more than money. We exist in many economies, those of monetary economy, of social reputation and status, of rational discourse, of scietific inquiry and community, of politics, sex and so forth. No one of them trumps the other, but in all of them we are a commodity of some form or fashion, to make money, increase wealth, expand knowlege, extend reputation and so on.
[Walpurgis] But IMO, it is not frightening to use human life (in an embryonic stage) to cure fully-formed and self-aware people that are suffering.
[Jake] Bear with me as I elaborate on this some more: Unless I am mistaken, the issue here is not JUST an embryo, but specifically with embryonic stem cells. These are cells that BY DEFINITION have not yet begun to differentiate. As I understand it, the very process of differentiation in mammals begins with gastrulation. Prior to this point, mammal cells retain totipotency, and the "embryo" exists in a state, a blastula, or literally a BALL OF CELLS. Actually, more specifically a blastodisc in mammals, but it correllates directly to the blastula stage in all deuterostomes. So all of those "abortion stops a beating heart" wackos don't even have a heart to talk about at this point. The embryo hasn't even found its asshole yet, much less formed cardiac tissue.
[Walpurgis] The religious right seem to be concerned with the commodification of human life at its very earliest stages. This is amazing hypocrisy based on nothing but a dogmatic religious interpretation. The religious right are concerned that mass-producing embryos to further medical science and the quality of people's lives will create "what are in essence stem-cell factories". So they are more concerned with a factory that creates and stores human cells than a factory that keeps and slaughters animals in miserable and painful conditions (the factory farm, the abattoir), or the factory that keeps people working in miserable, boring, repetitive and painful conditions for a pittance (the industrial factory). I've worked in five factories, all deeply unpleasant. I've seen a slaughterhouse, a factory farm, both horrifying. A stem-cell lab full of mindless, useful human cells is no comparison.
[big snip]
[Walpurgis] Dear scientists: come to Europe before "pro-life" bomb you in your labs.
[Jake] While I understand your concern, I think this is a bit over-the-top alarmist. We haven't had any abortion clinic bombings in quite a long time, and with the "war on terror", I think that is likely to remain the case for a while.
Re:Bush's Clone Ban Plan Irrelevant
« Reply #5 on: 2002-06-15 05:20:49 »
[Walpurgis] The frightening part is human life being used as a commodity, to make money.
[Jake] One thing to remember in responding to this argument; Human Life IS a commodity. (snip)
[Walpurgis2] Agreed. I was writing from the perspective of the anti-HCC PoV, not my own. I recognise human life is a form of commodity, as our social interactions are defined by our value (which isn't, as you say, always economic). This is a fine definition of commodity, and says something about the reasons/uses behind social interaction.
[Jake] Unless I am mistaken, the issue here is not JUST an embryo, but specifically with embryonic stem cells.
[Walpurgis2] That is the case. I was making a stronger claim. I would be happy to see embryos grown for theraputic purposes, not just growing stem cells.
[Jake] As I understand it, the very process of differentiation in mammals begins with gastrulation. (snip)
[Walpurgis] Yes, its very interesting that the anti-choice side defend embryos at any stage, even though embryonic development (ontogeny) is closely related to phylogeny (evolutionary development). In essence, at many stages, human embryos are almost the same as other animal embryos. Yet these anti-choice people don't defend animal rights. Pure hypocracy. Of course, they defend their view saying the human embryo has potential. But the potiential argument is a nonesense. All sperm/ova have potential. All *human cells* have potential. Are you killing children by not cloning your cells? Furthermore, is boiling an egg the same as boiling a chicken? It crushing a oak seed the same as chopping down a 500 year old Major Oak?
[Walpurgis] Dear scientists: come to Europe before "pro-life" bomb you in your labs.
[Jake] While I understand your concern, I think this is a bit over-the-top alarmist.
[Walpurgis2] You misunderstand the purpose of this polemic. It was to show the anti-choice side in stark relief. I not intend to be alarmist, buy wryly humourous.
I am all for continuing research into all applications of cloning, research mind you. It appears to me that in no way is this a perfected technology, and hence I do have some difficulty with the rush of some medicos to apply this to real world situations, such as treating infertility.
I will admit before proceeding that I am somewhat biased against all infertility treatments because I am something of a neo-Malthusian.
I unashamedly admit though that the idea of using these relatively untried techniques to create fully matured organisms gives me the willies. There is at least some evidence that the process is fraught with errors and excluding the defects that occur in embryos that are so severe as to prevent viability, it may be that we could be creating humans (and animals for that matter) that are doomed to later terrible illnesses. Add to this that these lifeforms could be injecting horribly damaged material into our gene pools and I think it does call for at least a temporary ban on commercial exploitation of cloning for reproductive purposes.
Re:Bush's Clone Ban Plan Irrelevant
« Reply #7 on: 2002-06-24 16:46:06 »
[sharvell] I am all for continuing research into all applications of cloning, research mind you. It appears to me that in no way is this a perfected technology, and hence I do have some difficulty with the rush of some medicos to apply this to real world situations, such as treating infertility.
[Jake] So are you saying that if we perfect the technology you have no problems?
[sharvell] I will admit before proceeding that I am somewhat biased against all infertility treatments because I am something of a neo-Malthusian.
[sharvell] I unashamedly admit though that the idea of using these relatively untried techniques to create fully matured organisms gives me the willies. There is at least some evidence that the process is fraught with errors and excluding the defects that occur in embryos that are so severe as to prevent viability, it may be that we could be creating humans (and animals for that matter) that are doomed to later terrible illnesses. Add to this that these lifeforms could be injecting horribly damaged material into our gene pools and I think it does call for at least a temporary ban on commercial exploitation of cloning for reproductive purposes.
[Jake] The real problem does not lie in the genetic material itself, therefore I think you can stop worrying about injecting "horribly damaged material into our gene pools". In all of these experiements the real problem has lain in properly resetting the genetic material back into its embryonic state in order to begin development properly from step one. Also inducing a surrogate mother into accepting embryo has remained challenging with cloning as with all in vitro fertilization processes.
[Jake] There also remain some questions about the breakdown of telomeres in the donor. In the normal process of reproduction, the eggs start with the replenished telomeres naturally, whereas in cloning they do not. Hence without some corrective measure, the clone may be starting with only the number of telomeres that the donor had, thus reducing the life span of the clone. There remains, however, no reason in principle why this can't be corrected with the careful use of telomerase in the process.
[Jake] In any case if you actually do get a viable offspring, and it actually successfully reproduces the old fashioned way, then it is just as if the original and genetically identical donor were making a genetic contribution, and the problem of proper development and telomeres would not persist. There is no reason in priniciple why the normal offspring of a clone would have any unusual genetic problems unless they occured through something independant of the cloning process.
I have excluded my original text for brevity and clarity, some of Jake's is included.
[Jake] So are you saying that if we perfect the technology you have no problems?
As a technology, no. I have no problems in the sense that I do not believe cloning humans intrinsicly evil. As I said though, I do have a problem with all infertility treatments in general because I believe we get enough people the old fashioned way without coming up with new ways to create them. It may be a trite argument, but some people may be infertile because they need to be.
I do think though that if and when this is perfected that there will need to be some controls, for example, should it be legal to clone a person without his/her permission? I think also that at some point it should be definitively stated in the law that mature clones are for all legal purposes treated the same as their source organisms, i.e., a cloned human is just the same as any other human.
[Jake] The real problem does not lie in the genetic material itself, therefore I think you can stop worrying about injecting "horribly damaged material into our gene pools". In all of these experiements the real problem has lain in properly resetting the genetic material back into its embryonic state in order to begin development properly from step one. Also inducing a surrogate mother into accepting embryo has remained challenging with cloning as with all in vitro fertilization processes.
Doesn't the possibility exist though that if clone X is brought to maturity with an undetected defect in its DNA that it would then pass that DNA on to any natural offspring it might have (defects meaning physical damage that could occur during the process of moving DNA strands from the original organism to the receiving egg)?
I understand that the chance such damage could happen and still allow the production of an organism that is viable at all is slim, but it could conceivably happen, right?
In the end though, I'm all for continuing this research as I said previously. I even think we should really being throwing everything we can at it. Together with nanorobotics, it seems to be our best hope for solving some of our most terrible health issues. I just think that it should be proven well before we start applying it to the production of humans AND/OR animals in a commercial capacity.
Re:Bush's Clone Ban Plan Irrelevant
« Reply #9 on: 2002-06-25 01:39:48 »
snip
[sharvell] I do think though that if and when this is perfected that there will need to be some controls, for example, should it be legal to clone a person without his/her permission? I think also that at some point it should be definitively stated in the law that mature clones are for all legal purposes treated the same as their source organisms, i.e., a cloned human is just the same as any other human.
[Jake2] this sounds reasonable.
[Jake] The real problem does not lie in the genetic material itself, therefore I think you can stop worrying about injecting "horribly damaged material into our gene pools". In all of these experiements the real problem has lain in properly resetting the genetic material back into its embryonic state in order to begin development properly from step one. Also inducing a surrogate mother into accepting embryo has remained challenging with cloning as with all in vitro fertilization processes.
[sharvell] Doesn't the possibility exist though that if clone X is brought to maturity with an undetected defect in its DNA that it would then pass that DNA on to any natural offspring it might have (defects meaning physical damage that could occur during the process of moving DNA strands from the original organism to the receiving egg)?
I understand that the chance such damage could happen and still allow the production of an organism that is viable at all is slim, but it could conceivably happen, right?
[Jake2] Could it happen? Of course it could. But what are the chances of it happening? Probably no greater than with any naturally conceived child. In fact some sorts of genetic disorders would actually be reduced, as at least some of them are actually caused by malfunctions that can occur during meiosis, such as non-disjunction of chromosomes that often lead to Down Syndrome and other such anueploid* conditions.
snip
-Jake
*anueploid conditions are generally caused during meiosis (creation of gametes - egg and sperm) when the duplicated chromosomes fail to separate causing one gamete to lack a chromosome (almost always fatal) and another gamete to have an extra copy of a chromosome (sometimes fatal, frequently detrimental, and only occasionally harmless).
Re:Bush's Clone Ban Plan Irrelevant
« Reply #11 on: 2002-06-25 04:08:20 »
Why get concerned about cloning mature animals? I'm not sure what the point would be, though I'd be happy if anyone can see a point. Even cloning embryos seems odd, there are tons of frozen ones from IV treatment to use.
Cloning of stem cells seems to be the most important thing. Cloning for theraputic purposes and one days and cloning ones organs for transplant in the event of them being damaged seem to me to be the most important research areas. Reproductive coning should assume a back burner- there is no urgant need for it, we're having no trouble propagating. But still plenty of trouble living and suffering.
Re:Bush's Clone Ban Plan Irrelevant
« Reply #12 on: 2002-06-25 14:23:43 »
[Walpurgis] Why get concerned about cloning mature animals? I'm not sure what the point would be, though I'd be happy if anyone can see a point. Even cloning embryos seems odd, there are tons of frozen ones from IV treatment to use.
[Jake] One potential parent may have genetic defects which they do not want to pass on to their offspring, and so cloning the other would still allow them to have their own child.
[Walpurgis] Cloning of stem cells seems to be the most important thing. Cloning for theraputic purposes and one days and cloning ones organs for transplant in the event of them being damaged seem to me to be the most important research areas.
[Jake] Sure. As a generally useful medical procedure, theraputic cloning would be more likely to benefically impact more people so it seems easier to rally behind that rather than reproductive cloning. However reproductive cloning is important to preserve as an option as well. It goes right along with supporting other reproductive rights such as birth control and abortion. The government should only get involved to the extent necessary to promote medically safe implementation.
[Walpurgis] Reproductive coning should assume a back burner- there is no urgant need for it, we're having no trouble propagating. But still plenty of trouble living and suffering.
[Jake] As far as the need for it, that is an issue to leave to those who wish to consider reproductive cloning for themselves and to the doctors who work with them. As far as government violating the reproductive rights of its citizens, whether its reproductive cloning, abortion, in vitro fertilization, birth control, etc., I have a hard time thinking of that as a "back burner" issue. Those each imlicates different kinds of issue, both theraputic and reproductive cloning deserve our attention. Putting either on "the back burner" in our present political climate is tantamount to surrendering to the dominant religious agenda.
Re:Bush's Clone Ban Plan Irrelevant
« Reply #13 on: 2002-06-26 05:52:59 »
[Jake] As far as the need for it, that is an issue to leave to those who wish to consider reproductive cloning for themselves and to the doctors who work with them. As far as government violating the reproductive rights of its citizens, whether its reproductive cloning, abortion, in vitro fertilization, birth control, etc., I have a hard time thinking of that as a "back burner" issue. Those each imlicates different kinds of issue, both theraputic and reproductive cloning deserve our attention. Putting either on "the back burner" in our present political climate is tantamount to surrendering to the dominant religious agenda.
[Walpurgis] You're right of course, thanks for putting things in perspective.
Perhaps what I was trying to elucidate, was where reproductive cloning could be in a hierarchy of importance for myself and other political activists that share my views. Abortion/contraceptive rights and availability are certainly the top, followed by non-discriminatory adoption laws. IVF and cloning them follow as far as I'm concerned. I'm more interested in seeing people with reproductive trouble adopting children than making more. Environmental and over population considerations inform this position.
But who am I to make such decisions? Its just my opinion.
On the other hand, repro. cloning should lead to the genetic improvement of the foetus, eliminating genetic disorders and favouring genetic influences on health, intelligence, etc. That way, the need for theraputic cloning lessens in just a few generations - there becomes less need to search for solutions to medical problems becuase there are less medical problems - the new generations of people are less prone to health troubles. Taking this into consideration, repro. cloning gets to the root of the issue, whereas theraputic cloning is only treating a symptom and is more important for those already born (for whom genetic manipulation is too late).
I suppose that consideration would put repro. cloning *on top* on the hierarchy! That's thinking off the cuff for you
I'm not greatly concerned by repro. cloning resulting in seperate "races", or rather classes, of genetic "haves" and "havenot". We already have that situation with regards to food, lifestyle, health care and medicine (though that is not justification for ineuqality getting worse, just an observation). Also, if new generations of uberkinder (for want of a better term!) are healthier, there is more money to go to the unhealthy, ungenetically modified. If they are smarter, they should speed technological and political progress which should benefit all. Finally, those who haven't received genetic manipulation don't permently lose out. Technological advances in augmentation of the senses (see here for example: http://wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,53298,00.html ), limb, tissue, bone and organ replacement (using theraputic cloning), medical nanobots (http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=/news/news_single.html?id%3D1053) and genetically tailored drugs (http://www.bio.org/events/2001/event2001home.html) could level the field. Naturally, if any uberkinder reproduce with genetically unmodified people, their children will probably get benefits of gene-mod. for free.
I am sympathetic to your objection to governments interfering with reproductive rights - though I reserve my ire for governments (like the US government) that marginalise abortion and contraception becuase of how it relates to gender inequality and environmental degredation.
If the number of births per fertile women is 2.2, estimates are that the global human population would be 12.5 billion in 2050 and 20.8 billion in 2150. Since the estimates of the number of people who can be sustained in the biosphere over an indefinite period tend to fall between the 5 to 16 billion range, most experts agree that what is required now is not merely zero population growth, but *negative* population growth - we would have to *kill* people. Or else we face bio-spherical collapse.
*If* we face this situation (where 2.2 births per woman is the constant average), then our species' progress may not just be hindered, but perhaps even stopped or reversed. 0.1 births makes all the difference though. And if the figure is 2.0 we are in the clear (more or less).
As to your other main point, how far should we object to/support goverment "interferance"? Unavoidably, we live in a managed society and the way our cultures are currently organised, we require some form of government. Should governments allow us to breed all we want? What are our rights and their duties in this regard? Should they ever encourage or discourage? They certainly do the latter and governments certainly have an interest in the size of their populations (the ageing population has recently become a big concern).
I realise these questions relate to the basic questions of "how should we be governed? how should society organise?" Big questions!
I also realise that these questions aren't entirely relevant to what the US is doing. Their decision has been informed by a so called "pro-life" morality, sanctamoniously imposed from a position of ignorance. Igorant becuase not a single member of congress holds a PhD is a science subject - and so much of what they have to consider these days requires such understanding. So instead, they follow their narrow moralities. Like yourself, I object to this parochialism and see it as symptomatic of the failure of American democracy and a "pro-life" cancer in American values.
In 1995, after the accident which left him paralysed, Christopher Reeve said he wanted to be on his feet by his 50th birthday. That's next week, and although he has made amazing progress, he won't be standing - and for that, he says, George Bush must share the blame. He tells Oliver Burkeman why
Tuesday September 17, 2002 The Guardian
Waking up isn't as tough as it used to be. For years after the accident, Christopher Reeve's eyes would snap open at six and, in the morning stillness, with Dana Morosini, his wife, still asleep at his side, he'd have to run through it all again in his head. In his dreams, he was never paralysed - he'd be skiing and horseriding and sailing, like before - so it took a daily effort of will, there in the silence, to drag himself back to the reality that he couldn't move his body below the neck, or even feel it.
These days, he often doesn't wake until the alarm goes off at eight, and then it's straight into his morning routine: he takes a bucketful of vitamins, and then his nurse and a helper flex his legs and arms for at least an hour, keeping them supple and helping to stop them leaping about in uncontrollable spasms. They tape electrodes to his limbs and stimulate his muscles for another hour - he tries to eat breakfast at the same time - and then they wash and dress him and lift him into his wheelchair, strapping his arms down to the arm-rests and adjusting the padded support which cradles his head and neck. They connect a pipe to his throat and hook it up to a ventilator, and they attach a valve that collects his urine in a tube concealed in his right trouser-leg. By this point, it's usually getting on for noon.
Then, on this particular day, they slather him with makeup for a documentary he'll be working on later, and wheel him down the sun-flooded lobby of his home in upstate New York to a small, impeccably furnished front room, lined with photographs of Reeve before his catastrophic 1995 horse-riding injury, and with books: on drama theory, on classical mythology, on abstract expressionism, and a hefty coffee-table number on the films of Merchant Ivory.
"I learned years ago to come to terms with having so much done for me by others," Reeve says, in a loud, resonant monotone that doesn't quite drown the hissing inhalation and exhalation of the ventilator. He's an imposing presence at 6ft 4in, and the wheelchair seat lifts him high off the ground. An air pipe is positioned in front of his face, and he can adjust the chair by blowing on it. His features are pinched, his eyes red-rimmed, but the handsomeness is still there, the good looks that, when he was younger, would have made any career but that of movie star seem profoundly misguided. I am four inches shorter, swallowed up by a low, deep armchair, with the result that Reeve peers down at me from a commanding height as he speaks. It isn't the way the able-bodied and the wheelchair-bound normally interact.
"Sometimes I won't even notice what's being done," he says of his morning manoeuvres. "My mind just goes miles away. It's all become such a routine that it's second nature." Some things haven't changed, though. "I've still never had a dream that I'm disabled," he says. "Never."
It sounds strange to say it, but Reeve is, in a certain sense, a fortunate man, and he knows it. Bedford, in Westchester County, New York, is a cartoonishly idyllic slice of rural America - dappled lanes, Colonial-era houses, gleaming white church spires and grass so vividly green it might have been treated with extra chlorophyll. And he has money - enough to live in a vast, airy, modernist home, secluded on a hill shrouded by woodland; enough to have had it adapted to include, among other things, a lift; and enough to pay for a small army of aides, including his longtime nurse, Dolly Arro, who glides into the room at intervals to feed him water through a straw.
He spends £270,000 on treatment each year, and much of the equipment used in his therapy has been donated by the manufacturers. You might catch yourself thinking that, given his quadriplegia, Reeve could not hope for more, but the point, of course, is that he does. Shortly after the accident, he vowed that he would walk again by the time he was 50. His birthday is a week tomorrow.
"What I actually said was that I hoped to be on my feet by my 50th birthday, and to thank everyone who'd helped me on my way," he says today, speaking in deliberate, fully-formed sentences, and only occasionally gasping on his words as he breathes through the ventilator. "I never said I will stand, I said I hoped to stand. It wasn't a prediction." Still - although he is plainly guarded on the subject of his own emotions - he admits he can't help but brood. "It's defeatist to harp on what might have been, and yet, it's hard to resist considering what might have been," he says.
"I'm not despairing, but I'm disappointed. When I was first injured, I thought hope would be a product of adequate funding, and bringing enough scientific expertise to the problem. But those are not the problems - the budget of the National Institutes of Health has risen from $12bn when I was injured to over $27bn now. What I did not expect was that hope would be influenced by politics."
In his 1998 autobiography, Still Me, Reeve described how his anger was mainly directed at himself, how he had failed himself, and his family - his wife, Dana, their son Will, now nine, and his two older children from a previous relationship, Matthew and Alexandra. "It dawned on me," he writes, that "I was going to be a huge burden to everybody, that I had ruined my life and everybody else's." Now, though, it is sharply focused on America's politicians and religious leaders, and the way they have, in his view, impeded research in therapeutic cloning and stem cells - research that might otherwise, by now, have led to human trials of drugs designed to regrow the nervous systems of people like Reeve.
"If we'd had full government support, full government funding for aggressive research using embryonic stem cells from the moment they were first isolated, at the University of Wisconsin in the winter of 1998 - I don't think it unreasonable to speculate that we might be in human trials by now."
Reeve's public persona is well established by now: he is the man who played Superman and then became Superman, a living demonstration of the benefits of hope and positivity in the face of a catastrophe that might have destroyed him mentally - and so there is something startling about the intensity of his rage.
"We've had a severe violation of the separation of church and state in the handling of what to do about this emerging technology. Imagine if developing a polio vaccine had been a controversial issue," he says. "There are religious groups - the Jehovah's Witnesses, I believe - who think it's a sin to have a blood transfusion. What if the president for some reason decided to listen to them, instead of to the Catholics, which is the group he really listens to in making his decisions about embryonic stem cell research? Where would we be with blood transfusions?"
Stem cells have the ability to grow into any kind of body tissue, and he can see why those derived from fertilised eggs have sparked an ethical controversy, he says. But why the hold-ups and objections to therapeutic cloning, or somatic cell nuclear transfer, in which a patient's DNA is transplanted into an unfertilised egg to create an embryo? "Some religious and social conservatives say that that egg, by itself, is an individual. I find it hard to understand. If that egg is an individual, it means it has the same status as a living human being. When human beings die, the next of kin ordinarily have a funeral. So if you follow their logic, women should be having funerals for these so-called individuals that they lose every 30 days. I know it's a rather cynical way to look at it, however, it's very important to look logically at the problem, rather than emotionally."
Logic has its limits, though. "I do have an emotional response, sitting here, approaching my 50th birthday, to opponents who do not have a consistent moral point of view," he says. "I'm angry, and disappointed... I think we could have been much further along with scientific research than we actually are, and I think I would have been in quite a different situation than I am today." Dolly Arro appears silently at Reeve's right foot and drains the tube hidden beneath his trouser-leg into a black bottle. If Reeve considers this an indignity, he does not show it. He doesn't even pause.
Reeve has been accused of providing false hope to patients with no real chance of recovery. But his accusers "tend not to be up to date with the latest research", he says - "or they've been injured for so long, and their quality of life is so poor, that they don't dare to hope."
After all, who can say how less false his hope might have seemed if George Bush, after appointing a commission to examine the issue of therapeutic cloning, hadn't rendered it impotent by coming out against the technique before its report was published? "Who knows what might have been accomplished if there had been fair play politically?" he says.
The good news is that he is moving again. He has some motion in the fingers of both hands, and when he's lying flat, with his leg bent at 90 degrees, and a helper applying her full body weight against his foot, he can push his leg straight again. With electricity pulsing through his legs - via electrodes placed on his quadriceps and hamstrings - his muscles can be made to contract and he can, in effect, pedal 10 miles on an exercise bike in an hour. Just as important, though, if less visible, is the partial sense of touch he has recovered in about 65% of his body. He can feel the prick of a needle, and the difference between hot and cold. He describes much of it in a new book of short essays, entitled Nothing Is Impossible.
"Of course, motor recovery is more dramatic, because you can see it happen," he says. "But sensory recovery... to feel touch, after years of going without it, is very meaningful. It makes a huge difference. It means I can feel my kids' touch. It makes all the difference in the world."
None of this was supposed to happen. In May 1995, Reeve was taking part in a cross-country equestrian event when his thoroughbred horse, Buck, halted abruptly before a jump - scared, perhaps, by a rabbit, Reeve has speculated - and pitched his rider head-first to the ground. Reeve's hands were tangled in the reins, so he was powerless to break his fall, and his skull literally became separated from his spinal cord. In intensive care, on a respirator, after the spinal cord had been reattached, he mouthed to Dana: "Maybe we should let me go."
The reattachment was itself a milestone in surgical history, but his doctors were still more astonished when, in 2000, he began to feel the first twitches of motor recovery. "The conventional wisdom is that with an injury as serious as mine, you don't recover later than one year after," Reeve says. He remembers being in New Orleans, at a cocktail reception for a symposium of neuroscientists, two years ago, when his doctor, John MacDonald of Washington University, approached with a colleague to ask how he was. "Well, eventually they always come around to the same question: "Is there anything new?' And I said, 'Let me show you something.' And I moved my left index finger on command. I said, 'Move' - so that they would know it wasn't just happening randomly - and the finger moved. I don't think Dr MacDonald would have been more surprised if I had just walked on water." New tests show that the time between him thinking about moving his finger and the motion being accomplished is as short as in an unparalysed person.
His recovery is unprecedented, but Reeve and his doctors agree it is largely the result of intensive physical therapy, not some miraculous power of will, and he is embarrassed by the idea that people might think otherwise.
Within weeks of his accident he was starting the advocacy work that would lead to the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation and the Reeve-Irvine research centre at the University of California. Yet despite his long history of supporting liberal political causes before his accident, the obstacles to his campaign still came as a shock. "I know of one scientist who in 1996 was working, with rats, developing a drug that would cause regeneration in the central nervous system," he says. "And the human trials were only delayed because of lawsuits brought against him by a small pharmaceutical company that had funded some of his early work and wanted a bigger piece of the pie now that he was about to work on humans. This is simply profiteering."
Surely all this might easily lead to depression and despair? No, Reeve insists: that is something he insists he will not tolerate. "I have moments of anger. But am I in despair about it? No, I'm not. Despair is a very bleak word." When he feels frustrated, he says, he turns his attention to his family, or to the numerous projects he's immersed in: the foundation, publicising the new book, writing speeches, examining screenplays he may direct. He has already, since his injury, directed a television movie and starred in a television remake of Hitchcock's Rear Window. He will celebrate his birthday next week with a New York fundraising event attended by his long-standing friend, Robin Williams, as well as Barbara Walters, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas.
"Not letting negativity get the upper hand is really, really critical. Not only to your mental outlook, but literally to your physical health, because if negativity's allowed to fester, it causes health problems."
No, says Reeve, things are looking up. He can move, a little, and feel, quite a bit, and he's practising breathing without a hose, using a pressure-support ventilator which allows him to use his diaphragm without the obstructive weight of his internal organs. He's not in pain, he says - "knock on wood". Even the least dignified part of his daily routine, when an aide has to push on his stomach to help him empty his bowels - well, "everybody just does it efficiently and proficiently. The less said about it the better." He doesn't even need to turn his head when he is driven past the barn where he used to keep his horse. "And I don't mind at all hearing about the exploits of friends of mine I used to ride with," he says.
"You know, the accident's power is diminishing. Do I wish it hadn't happened?" It's an absurd question, but he answers it anyway. "Absolutely... but I find that it's best to think, well, what can I do today? Is there something I can accomplish, a phone call I can make, a letter I can write, a person I can talk to, that will move things forward? We have to learn to live a new life that would not have seemed possible. But that's not something you need to be Superman to accomplish."
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You misunderstand the purpose of this polemic. It was to show the anti-choice side in stark relief. I not intend to be alarmist, buy wryly humourous.
<--Jake
