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INEVITABLE HUMAN CLONING AS VIEWED FROM 221-B BAKER STREET

Ethics & Medicine, Fall 2004 by Cheshire, William P

The latest in a series of attempts to implant a cloned human embryo in a woman's womb continues to fail to produce a viable pregnancy. That announcement from controversial fertility scientist Panos Zavos at a London press conference earlier this year made headlines worldwide. "Successful or not, we are going to do another one and another one and another until we succeed."1 "The development of human cloning is," pronounced Dr. Zavos in galloping cadence, "inevitable."2

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Dr. Zavos is not alone in claiming that human cloning cannot be stopped.3'4 Those who disagree, the inevitablists argue, stand in the way of unalterable destiny. Against their certainty of what biotechnology will soon make possible, ethical debates seem inconsequential. For despite arguments against it, human cloning, they say, is unavoidable. It will happen anyway. Cloning technology is becoming feasible, its development irresistible, its application inescapable. The transformation of the imaginable into the possible has, to the inevitablists, dissipated all questions of "whether" and "should," leaving only pragmatic questions of "how," "by whom first," "toward what ends," and "for what price?"

As the pace of cloning rhetoric increases, human dignity seems less noticed, obscured by the dust from the brash stampede of brute inevitability. Trampled under the heels of those embarked on the frenetic quest for biotechnical transhumanism, science's fractured moral compass, relegated to ornamental value, now seems to point only in the direction these scientists happen to be going.

Meanwhile, in a nearby district of London, for anyone familiar with literature, a sanctuary of clear thinking lies a short walk from Dr. Zavos's news conference. Just beyond the traffic, in the second-story window of 221B Baker Street, one can almost imagine, behind the curl of smoke from his calabash pipe, the amused and ever confident smile of the renowned consulting detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. The perspective from Baker Street is as timeless as are the short stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. In considering how Sir Arthur's protagonist might have responded to the "interesting, though elementary"5 prospect of inevitable human cloning, a surprising analysis comes to light. Before Mr. Holmes has finished his first pipe, the claim of inevitability will have collapsed beneath the wisdom of even a fictional personality, whose deductions are "simplicity itself."6

Let it be clear that this writer, although an admirer, has not actually met Mr. Holmes and therefore cannot speak for him on bioethical matters. The aim of the following discussion rather is to examine the case for inevitable human cloning from the perspective of 221-B Baker Street, drawing from the wisdom of Holmes and Watson to suggest fresh insights into a quandary unknown to their time.

There is in Western literature no finer exemplar of the practical value of keen observation and astute deduction than Sherlock Holmes. His companion Dr. Watson regularly noted his "passion for definite and exact knowledge"7 as well as "his brilliant reasoning power [that] would rise to the level of intuition."8 Wrote Watson, "His zeal for certain studies was remarkable, and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample and minute that his observations have fairly astounded me."9 Holmes was, moreover, "deeply attracted by the study of crime, and," as Watson records, "occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police."10

Sherlock Holmes was no stranger to the intimidations of inevitablism. In The Final Problem, Holmes received a visit from the villain of villains, Professor Moriarty, who taunted him with the threat of "inevitable destruction," adding,

"Tut, tut!" said he. "I am quite sure that a man of your intelligence will see that there can be but one outcome to this affair. It is necessary that you should withdraw. . . . You stand in the way not merely of an individual but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize. You must stand clear, Mr. Holmes, or be trodden under foot."11

If Holmes had given in to evil, there could have been no story. Nor in this case would he have earned the praise of Dr. Watson, who confided that, "I had often admired my friend's courage, but never more than now."11 The story's unfolding proved Holmes's struggle with his sinister adversary to be most difficult, requiring the utmost wit, and courage that resulted in triumph only at the cost of great personal sacrifice.

In regard to the question of human cloning, Holmes would likely beckon, "Let's now explore the parts that lie behind it."8 "Come, Watson! . . . The game is afoot."12 In the race to clone the first human being in history, much of the preliminary footwork has already been accomplished in existing biotechnology. Methods that were developed to improve the efficiency of in vitro fertilization (IVF), such as intracytoplasmic sperm injection, electrofusion, and cytoplasmic transfer, so closely approximate somatic cell nuclear transfer technology that the same equipment and technical skills already in operation in IVF laboratories around the world are already available, virtually unregulated, and could easily be redirected to human cloning experiments. Following the 1996 cloning of Dolly the sheep,13 and the 2001 announcement that Advanced Cell Technology had cloned human embryos by transferring nuclear material from the cells of an existing person into donated human eggs stripped of their nuclei,14 some have conjectured that it may be simply a matter of time before cloned human beings are brought to term. Already South Korean scientists have established an embryonic "cloning academy."15 Commenting on the inexorable trajectory of human cloning technology, Columbia University reproductive physician Mark Suer speculated that, "If you had a good cell biologist, you could do this with two people. You could do it in a small closet. . . . It will be done by someone, somewhere."16

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INEVITABLE HUMAN CLONING AS VIEWED FROM 221-B BAKER STREET

Ethics & Medicine, Fall 2004 by Cheshire, William P

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