The End of Sex As We Know It
William Luse on the Implications of Cloning
If the technology of cloning can in time be reliably applied to humans, the clone and his progenitor will be bound together by more than biological heritage. The clone will live beneath the dual shadows cast by a terrible knowledge: that not only is his life—bereft of a unique biological identity—not fully his own, but also that he was manufactured for the purpose of reproducing desirable traits identified in advance, as some now seek abortion to sex-select a child, or as some women seek insemination with the thawed-out sperm of a refrigerated genius. How much we are affected by this terrible knowledge will be determined by how much we care about the clone.
A society that can sit by while upwards of 30 million of its children are aborted, while thousands are discarded in errant attempts at in vitro fertilization (IVF), while thousands more are preserved in a frozen limbo and made ready for use, sale, or disposal at their donors’ convenience, is not a society that will blanch for long at the idea of reproductive cloning. The technological assault on the mechanics of sexual reproduction and the ethical deconstruction surrounding the disposition of its unwanted consequences have been underway for quite some time, and we have managed to absorb them with relative ease.
Assuming that cloning technology will surmount the difficulties presented by premature aging and congenital defects, we will accustom ourselves to its presence as its ubiquity wears down our moral resolve, as has happened with those other evils. That resolve has always been anchored in the foundation of love between husband and wife in marriage. If the means by which we bring children into the world bears any relation to our love for them, and to the love between man and woman, we cannot help but wonder if this new technology might further endanger, even threaten the survival of, our most enduring human institution.
Two Transgressions
As things now stand, with sexual intercourse still the normal means of conceiving and bringing a child into the world, the advent of reproductive cloning will not be marked by parents looking to give birth to their biological duplicates. Most couples will desire a mix of their genetic endowments, resulting in that happy surprise that allows them to call the baby “ours.” Such a couple would see no advantage to cloning.
But suppose the woman, through some natural defect, cannot conceive in the normal way but still wants that happy surprise. She might have herself cloned and the embryo implanted in her womb. She is now carrying her duplicate, toward the nurturing of which creature her motherly instincts will likely be highly ambiguous. When the fetus reaches a certain age, her lifetime’s supply of eggs will be ready for harvesting. But for the eggs to be harvested, the mother must abort the fetus.
Some of the harvested eggs will be fertilized in vitro by her husband’s sperm, and the rest put into cold storage. A few of the resulting embryos will be implanted in her womb (“selective reduction” the subsequent medical advice), and, with luck, she will give birth nine months later to that desirable mix of husband and wife that motivated her in the first place.
If she would rather not weather the abortion, if some remnant of stigma still attaches, and she wishes to avoid the embarrassment of explaining a pregnancy that suddenly disappears, she can have her cloned embryo implanted in the womb of a surrogate mother, who will then carry the child to be aborted. After in vitro fertilization of one or more of the harvested eggs, our mother-to-be need only bear the child she originally bargained for, never having to suffer the sight, sound, or touch of the aborted clone. In our future, I see wombs for rent and eggs for sale.
This scenario, in terms of its moral depravity, doubles the transgression, involving as it does both cloning and abortion. But are there those among us who would be willing, even eager, to forego the abortion and settle for the clone? It is tempting to assume that only the most egomaniacal among us would care to watch the image of himself grow up all over again. But considering the prevalence (and gradual acceptance) of those other reproductive evils already mentioned, I do not think the impulse would be limited to personalities of this type, and that we would do well not to underestimate either the narcissism or the opportunism of our next-door neighbor. Herewith, I’d like to offer a few scenes from the nightmare I see on the horizon.
Sex & Reproduction
William Luse is an adjunct professor of English at Valencia Community College in Orlando, Florida, and host of the Catholic website Apologia.
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