Human cloning and fallacious objections

Of all issues thrown up by the advances in science and engineering in the past ten years, there is probably nothing as controversial as the prospects of human cloning. Objection to human cloning is probably one of the few issues that unite people of religious beliefs and of people from both the right and the left. In fact, there is so much condemnation of human cloning that one might find it easier to confess to having babies for breakfast than to vocalize support for human cloning.

Yet, if we are to scrutinize the issue in a very rational and detached way, most of the vehement objections to human cloning simply doesn't make sense. Now here, I must clarify that I am not taking a stand of supporting human cloning (see what I mean about having babies for breakfast?). It is just that I feel that if we really want to object to something, we should at least check to see that the arguments for it make sense. As it turns out, I think that most of the strong reaction to human cloning got nothing to do with moralizing but is actually more of an emotional backlash.

One of the most common objections to human clones is that human clones are a travesty of life. This objection is probably hugely inspired by a lot of bad science fiction in which super villians created replicas of themselves either to cheat death, conquer the world or just out of sheer meglomania. An example is some evil dictator like Adolf Hitler cloning thousands and thousands of copies of himself and plunging the world into the depths of darkness. Although this make for good material for science fiction, a closer examination reveals that this image is unrealistic.

First and foremost, exact replicas (as defined in DNA blueprint) do exist in this world even before genetic engineering. Monozygotic twins are in a sense clones of each other. Anyone who has known monozygotic twins personally would agree that though twins are remarkably similar, they are also individuals who are different in many ways. I honestly do not think that the spouse of a twin would casually exchange one twin for another in the way he or she exchange a commodity, say an apple for another apple. My point is, if twins that are born minutes apart and brought up in the same environment can become different individuals, so would clones of another human being. Take away all the genetic engineering veneer, a clone of another human is genetically just his or her twin but born perhaps 20 years or even 50 years later. Given that monozygotic twins can develop as individuals rather than identical copies of each other, what are the chances that a human clone would be exactly like the original? Statistically, it should be more similar than father and son but less similar than twins born together.

What this also means is that even if each of the three biggest monster in 20th century: Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zedong cloned themselves, chances are their clones could turn out very different from the original 3 devils simply because their life experiences would be vastly different. Hitler Clone might grow up to be an eccentric artist, Mao a poet and Stalin a gangster. Now suppose that even if "accelerated-cloning" is available like in the movie "The Sixth Day" in which you can produce an adult clone in the space of hours, would evil doers like Mao, Stalin and Hitler be so eager to clone themselves? Of course not! The last thing Mao would want is someone who is JUST like him. Power hungry and ruthless. The original Mao would probably have more to fear from his own clones than any other rivals in his party!

Another common objection to human cloning is this mantra about "playing God". This "playing God" two-worder is probably the most arbitrary and unreasonable argument that one can invoke in any issue involving science and technology. Just what does one actually mean when he or she says that someone is "playing God"? If by defying the natural order of things is "playing God" and therefore objectionable, then a lot of things we do nowadays could be classified as such. This includes; artificial insemination, rescuing victims from natural disasters (which are supposed to be "Acts of God") and finding cures for genetic diseases (since these are inborn and therefore God given).

I suspect that many of the objections to the cloning of humans are rooted in our assumption about how special and sacred human lives are compared to other living things and also this assumption about the existence of a soul. When scientists want to go ahead and show that human beings can be replicated and mass produced in a similar way to how a production line can churn out widgets, it threatens to destroy our sacred beliefs and along with it this anthrocentric bedrock that we build our perspective of the world on. We cannot accept that all the wonderful motions, emotions, behaviours and dreams of humans arise from the complexity of how the billions of cells in our body and brain wire themselves up. If we can accept that, then a human clone is no big deal. The clone is a living being just like any of us with his own thoughts, aspirations, idiosyncracies and fears rather than a soulles abomination like Frankenstein.

There might be more rational and really moral objections to human cloning and if so they should be given more articulation than the kind of silly arguments above. Because, one day, some obscure scientist somewhere would finally succeed in creating (if someone has not secretly done so already) in creating a human clones and when that day comes, we best be prepared of how we should treat such a person.