Student Publications
University of Houston
151C Communications Bldg
Houston, TX 77204-4015
713.743.5350

©1991-2007
Student Publications,
All rights reserved.

Last modified:

Contact:
ktruitt@uh.edu

Opinion

Human cloning not research avenue

Jeff Cokenour
Guest Columnist 

In the state of Missouri, certain people are trying to manipulate a sick man -- Michael J. Fox -- for their own ends by saying that a new ballot measure scheduled for the November 2006 election would ban stem-cell research. This simply isn't true.

The ballot measure -- Constitutional

Amendment 2 -- says in part that, "This amendment will allow Missouri patients and researchers access to any method of stem-cell research, therapies and cures permitted under federal law. It also will set limits on any stem-cell research, therapies and cures, including banning human cloning or attempted cloning. Violators will be subject to criminal and civil penalties."

The proposed Missouri law would ban all human cloning efforts and guarantee legal protection for the type of stem-cell research allowed by the federal government. This type of initiative is critical, not only to the scientific community but to the entire world. 

Genetic research, particularly since James Watson and Francis Crick's discovery of the double-helical nature of DNA, has made giant leaps in progress and brought about the potential to greatly benefit the human race. 

Yet, like the sword of Damocles, this advancement also poses grave potential risks. As scientific students and future scientists, my colleagues and I bear a special burden to ensure that we do all we can to ensure that attempts at human cloning must never take place. In our labs we often fail to clone even the simplest prokaryotes -- one can imagine what horrible consequences might result from attempts at cloning higher organisms, let alone man. 

At the conclusion of each procedure, whether successful or not, the results of our experiments are discarded. This is of little concern to us, because the objects of our research -- oftentimes bacteria, although alive -- is not conscious of the manipulations they undergo. Prokaryotic organisms do not have the unique stamp of life, which is easily identified in man. 

Dr. Albert Schweizer once said, "A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help."

There are some today who for fame or fortune would discard ethical boundaries on scientific research or scientific pursuit. These people are mirror images of those who sought to develop terrible weapons of mass destruction during the period from 1940 to 1990. These weapons were capable of rendering entire civilizations to waste -- all in the name of advancement. 

On October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union detonated a hydrogen bomb over Siberia. This single bomb, if used in war, could have destroyed most of the eastern seaboard of the United States and killed more than 30 million people.

Dr. Linus Pauling, the only man ever to win two individual Nobel prizes, fought vigorously to stop this type of research, and his efforts led to a scientific commission and a nuclear test-ban treaty signed by 17 developed nations. This treaty halted all future aboveground nuclear testing.

Today, we face a far more dangerous threat than nuclear annihilation -- the manipulation of mankind for political or economic purposes. Manipulation of the human genome is no longer a piece of science fiction and can now take place in university or commercial laboratories.

While a nuclear weapon would kill many millions, its effect would be limited and eventually diminished. The victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their families suffered greatly in the aftermath of the bomb, but many generations of Japanese have lived healthy, fruitful lives despite the devastation of the 1945 bombings. 

This would not be the case if human genetic manipulation were allowed to take place. The effect of this type of activity would never diminish. Like Pandora's mythical box, once out of the scientific "bag," human cloning can never again be put back in. Genetic manipulation of humans is entirely personal -- each individual could be subjected to unknown risks, which may have unending consequences.

As one who hopes to be a physician in the future, I want all disease and illness be cured and that everyone, regardless of race or creed, be able to live a healthy, normal life. But this goal must never be replaced by unbridled passion for achievement. Scientific advancement unattached to an ethical base is the most dangerous of animals, one that led to the "final solution" of the Nazi regime during World War II. 

Human cloning would inevitably lead to a world where all human life was reduced to a chemical structure or molecular formula. If mankind is to not only survive but also achieve the potential we have been given, it is the implicit responsibility of current and future scientists to ensure that the boundaries of research do not gnaw away the fabric of our lives. 

A biblical proverb says, "Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding. For the profit from it is better than the gain from silver and its produce more than fine gold; she is more precious than rubies, and all the things you can desire are not to be compared with her."

Advancement in gene therapy and molecular research does not need to enter the field of human cloning. Wisdom dictates that it must not.

Cokenour, a biology junior at UH-Victoria, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu