Uniqueness, individuality, and human cloning

Journal of Applied Philosophy

Volumn 15, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 217-230

  Elliott, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF REGINA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85006000732     PISSN: 02643758     EISSN: 14685930     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-5930.00092     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. See Ian Wilmut et al. (1997) Viable offspring derived from fetal and adult mammalian cells, Nature, 385, 27 February, pp. 810-813, and
2. K. H. S. Campbell et al. (1996) Sheep cloned by nuclear transfer from a cultured cell line, Nature, 380, 7 March, pp. 64-66. I will use the term `cloning' in this paper to refer exclusively to human cloning.
3. See Meredith Wadman (1997) White House bill would ban human cloning, Nature
4. See Declan Butler (1997) European ethics advisers back cloning ban, Nature, 387, 5 June, p. 536, and
5. Robin Herman (1997) European Bioethics Panel Denounces Human Cloning, The Washington Post, 10 June, p. Z19. An interesting exception to this is Australia, where the Infertility (Medical Procedures) Act (Victoria) passed restrictive legislation much earlier (1984) than many other countries. This Australian legislation, it seems, was the product of a similar flurry of concern about technological developments in the late 1970's surrounding the success of in vitro fertilisation techniques. For more about this legislation
6. Margaret Brumby and Pascal Kasimba (1970) When Is Cloning Lawful? Journal of In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer, 4, pp. 198-204
7. See also Peter Singer and Deane Wells (1985) Making Babies: The New Science and Ethics of Conception (New York, Scribner) pp. 146-149 for discussion of an important background report on which this legislation was based. In 1990, Britain introduced legislation (the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act) which ostensibly banned human cloning. But there have been concerns raised about whether this law forbids cloning only human embryos, and if so, whether it would thereby allow cloning adults by nuclear transfer as per the Roslin experiment, since such a procedure does not initially involve manipulating embryos.
8. For more on this see Ehsan Masood (1997) Cloning technique `reveals legal loophole', Nature, 385, 27 February, p. 757.
9. See A Dictionary of Biology (New York, Oxford University Press, 1996, 3rd ed.), p. 325.
10. For more about such matters, see Richard Lewontin (1997) The confusion over cloning, New York Review of Books, 23 October.
11. For more about this dispute see Rebecca Voelker (1994) A clone by any other name is still an ethical concern, Journal of the American Medical Association, 271, p. 331, and
12. J. Cohen and Giles Tompkin (1994) The science, fiction, and reality of embryo cloning, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 4, p. 194.
13. See J. L. Hall et al. (1993) Experimental cloning of human polypoid embryos using an artificial zona pellucida, The American Fertility Society conjointly with the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, Program Supplement, Abstracts of the Scientific Oral and Poster Sessions, Abstract 0±001, S1.
14. For more on this see National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction [NABER] (1994) Report on human cloning through embryo splitting: an amber light, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 4, p. 252.
15. (1970) Fabricated Man: The ethics of genetic control (New Haven, Yale University Press) p. 88.
16. Quoted in Jeffrey Kluger (1997) Will we follow the sheep? Time, 10 March, p. 40.
17. (1971) Ethical aspects of genetic control, New England Journal of Medicine, 285, pp. 780-781.
18. (1993) Perspective on cloning: a threat to individual uniqueness; an attempt to aid childless couples by engineered conceptions could transform the idea of human identity, Los Angeles Times, 12 November, p. B7.
19. (1993) Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W. Ellington, (Indianapolis, Hackett), p. 41 (436, Academy pagination).
20. This point is stressed by Stephen Jay Gould (1997) Individuality: cloning and the discomfiting case of Siamese twins, The Sciences, 37, September/October, p. 16.
21. For more about this see Richard C. Lewontin (1982) Human Diversity (New York, Scientific American Library).
22. The numbers in this, and the previous, sentence are from Stephen Strauss (1997) Hello Dolly, it's so good to see you, Globe and Mail, 1 March, p. A5.
23. See Jean L. Marx (1981) Three mice ‘cloned' in Switzerland, Science, 211, p. 375-376.