INEVITABLE HUMAN CLONING AS VIEWED FROM 221-B BAKER STREET

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

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

Nontrivial technical obstacles to human cloning remain, however, no matter how much hubris aspiring cloners bring to their efforts. Some of the bizarre variations on these experiments reveal the tenacity with which the goal of human cloning has been sought. Following Advanced Cell Technology's unpublished 1998 experiments in which human cell nuclei were inserted into cow eggs to create bovine-human hybrid embryos, former National Bioethics Advisory Commission Chair Harold Shapiro remarked, "As the technology continues to burst forward with such stunning speed, one has to be very modest about what one can expect to do to control and regulate one's basic principles." Bracing against the gusts of inevitability, Shapiro added, "We know that it would be very difficult but not impossible to stop something that we are against."17

To concede that the arrival of technical opportunity must be the prelude to large-scale, inevitable human cloning would be to overlook the decisive role of ethics. Opportunity correctly understood is an invitation to responsibility. Holmes and Watson acknowledged this when their client, entrusted with the precious Beryl Coronet, recognized "the immense responsibility which it entailed upon me."18 In another story, it was Holmes's reputation for being a man of "honor and discretion" that drew the heir to the throne of Bohemia to 221-B Baker Street entrusting the detective "with a matter of the most extreme importance."19 From the perspective of Baker Street and beyond, ethical restraint, not brazen indulgence, guides noble conduct.

The prospect of cloning a human being would have no doubt fascinated Sherlock Holmes, who thrived on applying his habits of observation and deduction to crimes no one else could solve. Holmes confided to Watson his "love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life."20 Deeply attracted to the extraordinary, Holmes spent his life "in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence."21 Watson noted that only the most remarkable of problems challenged Holmes's powers of analysis22 and disclosed that, "he would devote weeks of most intense application to the affairs of some humble client whose case presented those strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his imagination and challenged his ingenuity."23

Not only the cloning, but also the zealous cloner seeking celebrity, would have captivated the attention of Holmes, who aspired to preeminence in his own field. "I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous," said Holmes privately. "No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done."24 Yet Holmes sought to do good and consistently placed the interests of justice and beneficence ahead of his own personal gain or safety. Dr. Watson described him as "unworldly," adding, "I have seldom known him claim any large reward for his inestimable services."23 According to Watson, "he was ever as ready to bring his aid as his client could be to receive it."25 In contrast to scientists whom Lord Robert May, President of Britain's Royal Society, recently characterized as "cowboy cloners,"1 Sherlock Holmes the gentleman detective exemplifies intellectual passion tempered by dedicated adherence to moral principle.

The contours of Holmes's ethics conformed to the culture of Victorian England, which, despite its social failures in some areas, generally recognized a universal moral authority in the God of the Christian Bible. Though Doyle was himself an agnostic, his Jesuit education may have helped shape the moral ethos out of which Holmes, in observing nature, deduced evidence of the goodness of God:

Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers and our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.26

Among Holmes's cases this Victorian worldview enabled Hugo Baskerville to acknowledge "the infinite goodness of Providence,"27 and Jefferson Hope with confidence in the reliability of ultimate justice to declare, "Let the high God judge between us."28 The citizens of such a worldview tended to cultivate an attitude of humility, which is no less a virtue in the current age of biotechnology.

Even Sherlock Holmes with his well-developed sense of self-importance would have been perplexed by the contemporary belief in the nearly absolute liberty of personal autonomy unencumbered by intrusions of obligations to a higher good, or to God. An exalted view of personal liberty that lets individuals choose their own moral law apart from the common recognition of any natural order invites enterprises such as human cloning. A self-determined people may feel at liberty to clone themselves, and perchance to control the genetic makeup of their offspring.

Cloning has been offered as a way to recreate talented people. If he were not fictional, perhaps someone might want to clone Sherlock Holmes. Such flattery would quickly dull, for once selected as special, the proliferation of so many genetic copies of Holmes would render him no longer the only one of his kind. Individuals are plainly much more than assemblages of genes. Detective fiction elaborates how persons are also the products of their origin, their environment, their choices, their experiences and relationships. In reality, persons are not things to do with as one likes, but are living beings of inestimable worth. They are unique souls. Populating Scotland Yard with multiple Inspectors Lestrade would not necessarily resolve the London crime problem. Although clones of Professor Moriarty might not be destined to turn out wicked, the thought of someone set on manufacturing multitudes of Moriartys would be profoundly unsettling. As Holmes said in The Adventure of the Dancing Men, "We have let this affair go far enough."29

The privilege to clone humans, at least to the embryonic stage of life, has been widely defended on the grounds of scientific freedom.30,32 But an absolute freedom to investigate and manipulate nature, including human nature, would mean that any technological act inevitably could be permitted. Sherlock Holmes would be quick to point out that, "it is as well to test everything."33 What is here subject to testing is the dogma of technological fatalism, which claims that, if a conceivable technology is scientifically possible, then it ought to be pursued as a moral imperative in order to direct its applications toward useful ends, because in time it will be developed anyway.34

To this Holmes might respond, "You know my methods. Apply them!"35 When Dr. Zavos claims that, because human cloning is inevitable, he should keep trying until he succeeds, the observer does not need a magnifying lens to notice the breach in logic. Even if bringing a human clone to term were proven to be possible-a feat the laws of nature have so far denied-Dr. Zavos attempts to deduce an "ought" from a "can." For Holmes "the world is full of obvious things"36 that not everyone observes. It is obvious to ethical investigation that a statement of "one can" simply does not justify the conclusion "I ought."

In the case of human cloning, "can" argues more persuasively for a verdict of "ought not." Serious safety concerns have been raised, since most cloning experiments in nonhuman animals have yielded defective or nonviable offspring.13 Dolly the sheep, for example, had to be euthanized last year because of progressive lung disease and premature arthritis.37 Cogent ethical arguments have also been put forth showing that cloning would affront human dignity and result in innumerable harms to human flourishing.38-40

Just as, in Holmes's day, countless wrongs were committed within "the dark jungle of criminal London,"41 inevitability arguments emerge from the philosophical jungle in many forms. Some zoologists warn that the extinction of the tiger is inevitable, but it would be clearly wrong to hasten the efforts of tiger poachers on the grounds that tigers will one day die out anyway.42 Holmes in a different context once remarked, "You may remember the old Persian saying, 'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub.'"43 There may also be unforeseen dangers to taking the lives of cloned human embryos.

The appeal to inevitability, whether from Professor Moriarty or from a modern biotechnological fatalist, to the mind of Sherlock Holmes would be stimulating if not instructive. Holmes once chuckled to Watson, "When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth."35 The fallacy of inevitability is that it reduces to an empty bluff. Masquerading as an ethical theory, the appeal to inevitability is a veiled excuse to abandon ethics. The concession to inevitability suspends ethical judgment and substitutes for human decision an autonomous technology existing as an end in itself, and with human beings as its means.34 Indulging in human cloning experiments would hurl research well beyond the pale of traditional scientific freedom and into brave new territory that Arthur Conan Doyle could not have foreseen. The freedom to engage in whatever might be technically possible would be, in effect, a freedom drained of the moral obligations to humankind and to research subjects that history has taught must accompany the scientific enterprise.44

To his credit, Dr. Zavos is an imperfect technological fatalist in that he advocates some ethical oversight of the practice of human cloning. But once it has been decided that human cloning is permissible, it becomes difficult to find logical grounds for resisting further appeals to technological fatalism to justify extending access to cloning technology for any purpose held to be inevitable. The slippery claim of inevitability outlines ethical criteria that too easily dissolve into what is merely possible.

Shall the world, then, be overrun by clones? Hardly. Feigning delirium in The Adventure of the Dying Detective, Holmes quipped, "Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem."45 Only madness disregards limits. Aspiring cloners may continue their experiments in undisclosed locations. But the widespread practice of human cloning, leading to allocation of federal research funding, patenting of altered clone lines, implementation of eugenic agendas, and broad cultural acceptance, are by no means faits accomplis. Ethically prudent choices, particularly if codified preemptively in law and treaty, can resist the cumulative assaults of realizable opportunity. Though confronted by persistent inevitability, ethics can still serve the common good. Even inevitable wrongs can by ethical action be postponed or restricted, thereby limiting the reach and extent of evil.

Had Arthur Conan Doyle lived to witness the advent of human cloning, perhaps he would have written a Sherlock Holmes adventure story about an unknown clone. In that story, Dr. Watson might react to human cloning as something ghastly wrong, but Mr. Holmes would more likely find fascination in questions of mistaken identity arising from DNA testing. Doyle has created in Sherlock Holmes the supremely rational individual. "I am a brain, Watson," said Holmes. "The rest of me is a mere appendix."46 "All emotions," noted Watson, "were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen."10 When Holmes, in surveying the scene of a crime in The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, exclaimed, "Every instinct that I possess cries out against it. It's wrong-it's all wrong-I'll swear that it's wrong,"47 he was responding not to a moral offense but to the anomalous fact of an extra wine glass. Instinct for Holmes resides at the level of pure reason.

Reason alone, however, cannot complete the story. Reason must be motivated by purpose, and purpose must be oriented by value. The solitary fact of a wine glass has value precisely because it can be traced to a malevolent act. Even Holmes was appalled at the sight of untimely death.48 Holmes's avid antipathy to emotion, moreover, divulges an inconsistency that points to meaning beyond simple computation, for passionate resistance is itself an emotion.

What the reader learns from Holmes is that a coldly materialistic view of the world cannot satisfy. Holmes's total reliance on his exceptional rational faculties is to the exclusion of heartfelt intuition which apprehends truth deeper than logic. In deduction Holmes delights, but in compassion he is bound to disappoint. This is why many people might not prefer a Sherlock Holmes as their personal physician, and why Sir Arthur supplies Dr. Watson for essential dramatic contrast. 221-B Baker Street is incomplete without a Watson to complement its Holmes.

Unlike other technologies, human cloning takes for its raw material the mortal substance of living human beings. With the sentiment befitting a good Dr. Watson, many people instinctively recoil in response to the genetic copying of individuals or the calculated annihilation of embryonic human life, even if their explanation lies beyond logical description. Commenting on human cloning, bioethicist Leon Kass has drawn attention to the validity of such visceral responses and their basis in human moral intuition with the warning, "Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder."49

The full view from 221-B Baker Street, therefore, involves the complementary judgments of reason and moral intuition. Both reject unethical human cloning and its alleged inevitability.

Many proponents of human cloning research, in the interest of harvesting embryonic stem cells, are willing to overlook the problematic question of the moral status of the human embryo. Still others have urged restraint, maintaining that so-called "therapeutic" cloning, which entails the creation of living human embryos intended for destruction, sacrifices early human lives that should be respected as possessing the special moral status shared by all human beings.40 Although the tiny embryo might not at first glance appear to be human, if one reasons backward, and considers the full human life span from old age through adulthood, adolescence, childhood, infancy, fetal and embryonic life, a biologic continuum is plainly evident.

If Holmes were to lift his "lantern and magnifying lens"50 and gaze closely at the human embryo, what might he deduce? "Let me see if I can make it clearer," said Holmes investigating another matter in A Study in Scarlet.

Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backward, or analytically . . . . to begin at the beginning.51

The course of human life also is a train of connected events. Reasoning back to the beginning of life, logic encounters the wondrous embryo. From maturity to youth, from old age to embryo, the human being is indubitably the same being at every phase of development in life, seamlessly united to her existence throughout her life span. That the human embryo is a very young human organism is an elementary deduction. Likewise, the mind of Holmes appreciated that, "from a drop of water, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other."52

In conclusion, embryonic biotechnology has advanced at such an astonishing pace that some have predicted the development of human cloning to be inevitable. Arguments based on inevitability, although intended to sway public opinion and policy toward unpopular agendas, must be understood to represent an appeal not to ethics but to the abandonment thereof. Similarly, the argument that opposition to human cloning is useless derives not from valid moral reasoning but from transparent rhetorical intimidation.

As long as there are people who appreciate literature and ethics, inevitablists will not have the final word. That science and society must choose is inevitable, but that choice is not predetermined. An investigation of the case for human cloning from the perspective of 221-B Baker Street suggests the need for great caution. Arguments for prohibiting human cloning are ethically compelling.38-40 And there is, as Holmes advised Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles, "not a moment to lose!"53

Aspiring human cloners would do well to heed the words of Sherlock Holmes, who declared, "When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge."54 May biomedical knowledge always be nurtured by wisdom and applied with humility, for efforts that honor human dignity are never futile.

References

1 Human cloning attempt has failed. BBC News, February 4, 2004.

2 Panayiotis Zavos, Ed.S., Ph.D. Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, March 28, 2001, accessed at http://www.reproductivecloning.net/Articles/testimony. htm.

3 Kevles DJ. Cloning can't be stopped. Technology Review, June 2002.

4 Severino Antinori, "You can't put up the barriers on therapeutic cloning," cited by J. Barrett. Italian doctor says cloning must go ahead. Reuters, August 6, 2001.

5 Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Hound of the Baskervilles," in The Complete Sherlock Holmes: New York: Gramercy Books, 2002, p. 284.

6 Doyle, "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez," p. 260.

7 Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet," p. 10.

8 Doyle, "The Red-Headed League," p. 80.

9 Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet," p. 11.

10 Doyle, "A Scandal in Bohemia," p. 70.

11 Doyle, "The Final Problem," p. 201.

12 Doyle, "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange," p. 270.

13 Campbell KH, McWhir J, Ritchie WA, Wilmut I. Sheep cloned by nuclear transfer from a cultured cell line. Nature, March 7, 1996; 380: 64-66.

14 Cibelli JB, Kiessling AA, Cunniff K, Richards C, Lanza RP, West MD, Somatic cell nuclear transfer in humans: pronuclear and early embryonic development. Journal of Regenerative Medicine, 2001; 2: 25-31.

15 Pollack A. Medical and ethical issues cloud plans to clone for therapy. New York Times, February 13, 2004.

16 Alexander B. (You)2. Wired, February 9, 2001.

17 Russo E. Cow-Human Cell News Raises Ethical Issues. The Scientist, December 7, 1998; 12: 1.

18 Doyle, "The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet," p. 130.

19 Doyle, "A Scandal in Bohemia," p. 71.

20 Doyle, "The Red-Headed League," p. 76.

21 Doyle, "The Red-Headed League," p. 82.

22 Doyle, "Silver Blaze," p. 143.

23 Doyle, "The Adventure of Black Peter," p. 237.

24 Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet," p. 13.

25 Doyle, "The Naval Treaty," p. 190.

26 Doyle, "The Naval Treaty," p. 194.

27 Doyle, "The Hound of the Baskervilles," p. 287.

28 Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet," p. 37.

29 Doyle, "The Adventure of the Dancing Men," p. 220.

30 Statement by 40 Nobel Laureates Regarding Cloning, April 10, 2002, accessed at http://www.ascb. org/publicpolicy/Nobelletter.html.

31 Statement on Human Cloning. Association of American Universities, accessed at http://www.aau. edu/research/cloning4.02.html.

32 Severino Antinori, "This is an attack on science and on the freedom of scientific research." Human clone doctor on hunger strike, BBC News, January 21, 2003.

33 Doyle, "The Reigate Puzzle," p. 171.

34 Cheshire WP. Human Cloning and the Ethics of Inevitability. The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, January 25, 2002, accessed at www.cbhd.org.

35 Doyle, "The Hound of the Baskervilles," p. 284.

36 Doyle, "The Hound of the Baskervilles," p. 290.

37 Dolly the sheep clone dies young. BBC News, February 14, 2003.

38 Kass LR and Wilson JQ. The Ethics of Human Cloning. Washington, DC: The American Enterprise Institute Press, 1998.

39 Kilner JF. Human Cloning. In: Kilner JF, Cunningham PC, Hager WD. The Reproduction Revolution. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000, pp. 124-139.

40 Cheshire WP, Pellegrino ED, Bevington LK, Mitchell CB, Jones NL, FitzGerald KT, Koop CE, Kilner JF. Stem cell research: why medicine should reject human cloning. Mayo Clinic Proceedings 2003; 78: 1010-1018.

41 Doyle, "The Adventure of the Empty House," p. 207.

42 Tigers: Extinction or Management? Accessed at http://www.2zoe.org/position.html.

43 Doyle, "A Case of Identity," p. 87.

44 These moral obligations are not the invariable outcome of scientific education. Elie Wiesel asks of the Nazi physicians, "Why did their education not shield them from evil?" in the Foreward to George J. Annas and Michael A. Grodin, The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, p. vii.

45 Doyle, "The Adventure of the Dying Detective," p. 400.

46 Doyle, "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone," p. 433.

47 Doyle, "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange," p. 273.

48 Doyle, "The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter," p. 269.

49 Kass LR. Wisdom of Repugnance. In Kass and Wilson, The Ethics of Human Cloning, p. 19.

50 Doyle, "The Red-Headed League," p. 81.

51 Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet," p. 38.

52 Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet," p. 12.

53 Doyle, "The Hound of the Baskervilles," p. 293.

54 Dovle, "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," p. 116.

WILLIAM P. CHESHIRE, MD, MA, FAAN

William P. Cheshire, MD, MA, FAAN, is Associate Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, USA, and Director of Biotech Ethics for The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. Dr. Cheshire holds an MA in Bioethics from Trinity International University and serves on the Ethics Commission of the Christian Medical Association.

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