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Bioethics
ISSN 0269-9702 (print); 1467-8519 (online)
Volume 19 Number 3 2005
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UK and Malden, USABIOTBioethics0269-9702Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 20052005193232250Articles
REPRODUCTIVE CLONING AND GENETIC FALLACY
DR NEIL LEVY AND DR MIANNA LOTZ
REPRODUCTIVE CLONING AND A (KIND
OF) GENETIC FALLACY
DR NEIL LEVY AND DR MIANNA LOTZ
ABSTRACT
Many people now believe that human reproductive cloning – once suffi-
ciently safe and effective – should be permitted on the grounds that it will
allow the otherwise infertile to have children that are biologically closely
related to them. However, though it is widely believed that the possession
of a close genetic link to our children is morally significant and valuable,
we argue that such a view is erroneous. Moreover, the claim that the
genetic link is valuable is pernicious; it tends to give rise to highly
undesirable consequences, and therefore should be combated rather than
pandered to. The emphasis on the genetic is unwarranted and unfortu-
nate; rather than giving us moral reason to support reproductive cloning
in the case of infertility, the fact that cloning requests are likely to
be motivated by the genetic argument gives us reason to oppose its
availability.
Whatever credibility we attach to the recent announcement, by
the leader of the Raelian cult, of the birth of the first cloned
human being, the prospect of human reproductive cloning
appears imminent. Should we be alarmed, morally, by this pros-
pect? Our purpose is to examine the claim, gaining in popularity,
that we ought, on the contrary, to welcome it. Proponents argue
that there are circumstances in which cloning ought to be per-
mitted: at the very least, they say, once it has become safe, and
can be used to allow the otherwise infertile to have children of
their own, cloning should take its place as just one additional
means of assisting reproduction.
The claim that cloning is morally supportable on the grounds
that it would allow the otherwise infertile to have genetically
related children, is, we believe, the strongest argument in its
favour. Moreover, permitting cloning for this reason alone would
REPRODUCTIVE CLONING AND GENETIC FALLACY 233
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
render many of the arguments commonly advanced against it
irrelevant. Thus, the genetic argument for reproductive cloning
(as we shall call it) deserves centre stage in our ethical delibera-
tions. Cloning should be permitted if and only if the fact that it
offers a kind of ‘cure’ for infertility constitutes a morally signifi-
cant argument in its favour.
Yet the genetic argument for cloning is not sound. It rests upon
assumptions and beliefs, concerning the importance of a genetic
connection to our children, which are false. Moreover, these false
beliefs have undesirable consequences, consequences which
would be magnified if we allowed human cloning. Accordingly,
consideration of the genetic argument gives us reason to prohibit
cloning, not to welcome it.
THE GENETIC ARGUMENT
Proponents of human reproductive cloning offer several reasons
why it ought to be permitted. However, the most weighty are
variations on a single theme: cloning ought to be permitted when
it is the only, or the only practicable, way in which people can
have healthy children who are closely related to them biologically.
Consider the following cases:
• Liz and Sean are married and wish to start a family, but Sean
is infertile. Liz could have a child using donor sperm. However,
both prefer that their child be the physical product of their
loving union, and therefore theirs, and theirs alone, biologi-
cally speaking.
• Robyn and her partner are lesbians. They, too, wish to start a
family. In the jurisdiction in which they live, they might be
permitted to adopt a child; failing that, either partner could
use donor sperm. Once again, however, the resulting child
would not be the embodiment of their love for one another.
• Matthew and Lynn are a married couple who wish to have a
child. Unfortunately, Lynn is a carrier for a rare and serious
genetic illness, and there is a high probability that any biolog-
ical child of hers will develop this disease.
In these cases cloning opens up a possibility for the couples that
is entirely new. It would allow them to have a child that is theirs,
biologically. Liz could bear a child who is the genetic clone of
Sean. In that case, they would both be the biological parents of
the child. If her own, denucleated, egg is used, then they will both
be the genetic parents as well, since in that case she supplies the
234 DR NEIL LEVY AND DR MIANNA LOTZ
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
mitochondrial DNA.
1
Similar techniques would permit Robyn
and her partner, and Matthew and his, to have children who are
their genetic offspring. Even in surrogacy cases, in which the
mitochondrial DNA is supplied by the surrogate mother, the
resulting child will share well over 90% of its DNA with one of its
‘parents’. Thus, even male homosexuals could have children who
were their genetic offspring.
These cases share one interesting feature. In them, the moti-
vation to clone stems not from desires that might seem perni-
cious, but from the (supposedly) natural desire many of us have
to bring children into the world who are closely related to us,
genetically speaking. In these cases, cloning could cure infertility,
a condition which causes many people great distress.
2
This is the
genetic argument
for human reproductive cloning.
Notice that cloning utilized solely for the purpose of allowing
the otherwise infertile to have biological children is cloning which
raises few of the spectres that commonly haunt the cloning
debate. Few people will see in such cloning the prospect of armies
of obedient replicants, for instance.
3
More seriously, the genetic
argument helps to allay fears that those who might employ clon-
ing must be motivated by the narcissistic desire to create dupli-
cates of themselves.
4
Moreover, cloning in these cases is not driven
by a desire to produce the perfect child, or to replicate a desirable
genome, which, given fears that the search for perfection will
make us less tolerant of imperfection, is also widely regarded as
a suspect motivation.
5
To be sure, some objections to cloning retain their original
force even in cases in which it is permitted solely as a ‘treatment’
for infertility. The objection that cloning represents a threat to
1
Neither Liz nor Sean would be biological parents in the usual genetic sense.
Liz would bear the child, and give birth to it, but it would not carry her genetic
material (other than her mitochondrial DNA). Sean would have an offspring
that bore a genetic relationship to him closer to that borne by a (near identical)
sibling, than to a genetic child. The child’s social grandparents will also be her
genetic parents. Notwithstanding this, cloning offers Sean a degree of genetic
relatedness to the resultant child that sperm donorship would not.
2
D.B. Hershenov. An Argument for Limited Human Cloning.
Public Affairs
Quarterly
2000; 14: 245–258; P. Kitcher. 2000. There Will Never be Another You.
In
Human Cloning
. B. MacKinnon, ed. Urbana. University of Illinois Press: 53–67.
3
22% of respondents in a February 2001 Time/CNN poll gave this fear as
their reason for opposing reproductive cloning.
4
L. Kass. 1998. The Wisdom of Repugnance. In
Flesh of My Flesh: The Ethics
of Human Cloning
. G.E. Pence, ed. Lanham. Rowman and Littlefield: 13–37.
5
B. Appleyard. 1999. Would We Let It Live? In
Goodbye Normal Gene: Confront-
ing the Genetic Revolution
. G. O’Sullivan, E. Sharman & S. Short, eds. Sydney. Pluto
Press: 157–168.
REPRODUCTIVE CLONING AND GENETIC FALLACY 235
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
the child’s supposed ‘right to an open future’, or her closely
related ‘right to ignorance’, would still need to be confronted.
6
So, too, will the contention that cloning represents a (further)
commodification of human life, the hubristic extension of human
powers beyond the limits that give meaning and value to human
life.
7
However, if the contention that people should be given every
opportunity to have biological children is as morally weighty as
many believe, it will almost certainly outweigh these consider-
ations. If there really is a strong, morally decisive, interest in
having biologically related children, then irrespective of the
cogency of the above arguments, we shall have to permit human
reproductive cloning.
As noted, cloning would not permit the otherwise infertile to
be parents in the (usual) genetic sense. We can, however, ignore
this complication. If the genetic connection matters as much as
commonly thought, then the fact that the child will be rather
more closely related to one of its social parents than is usual,
ought to
strengthen
the case for allowing cloning for the otherwise
infertile. If it is true that parents care for and protect their chil-
dren in part because of the genetic connection they have to them,
how much more will this be the case when the child is the clone
of one of them?
HOW IMPORTANT IS GENETICS?
These days, most people take the importance of genetics for
granted. The genome, we are frequently told, is the key to life; it
is what makes us what we are, individually and as a species. It
explains intelligence, propensities, and sexual orientation. No
wonder, then, that in assessments of the relative importance of
the genetic and the social (and indeed, the gestational) in
accounting for the parent-child relationship, the genetic is a clear
6
Defenders of such rights argue that the child’s knowledge of her future –
the illnesses from which she is likely to suffer, the abilities and weaknesses she
will possess, how she will look as she ages – represent a serious limit to her sense
of individuality and ability to make free choices. For consideration of these
objections, see B. Steinbock. 2000. Cloning Human Beings: Sorting through the
Ethical Issues. In MacKinnon,
op. cit
. note 2, pp. 68–84, and National Bioethics
Advisory Commission. 1998. Cloning Human Beings. In Pence,
op. cit
. note 4,
pp. 45–65. M. Tooley. The Moral Status of the Cloning of Humans.
Monash
Bioethics Review
1999; 18: 27–49, provides plausible considerations against the
‘open future’ argument.
7
Kass,
op. cit
. note 4; J. Haldane. 2000. Being Human: Science, Knowledge
and Virtue. In
Philosophy and Public Affairs
. J. Haldane, ed. Cambridge. Cam-
bridge University Press: 189–202.
236 DR NEIL LEVY AND DR MIANNA LOTZ
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
winner. In fact, however, there are strong reasons to doubt the
cogency of all of these claims for the importance of the genetic.
8
Supposed claims for the supremacy of the genetic stand in need
of justification, and it is to that analysis that we now turn.
Carson Strong, in the most sustained consideration of this
question in the context of cloning, identifies six reasons why
people might be thought to have a legitimate interest in having
a biological child:
(1) It involves participation in the creation of a person;
(2) It can be an affirmation of a couple’s mutual love and accep-
tance of each other;
(3) It can contribute to sexual intimacy;
(4) It provides a link to future persons;
(5) It involves experiences of pregnancy and childbirth; and
(6) It leads to experiences associated with child rearing.
9
To these six reasons, we can add three more:
(7) Genetic parents will provide better care for children than will
non-genetic parents;
(8) Genetic relatedness is more natural than other means of
assuming responsibility for children;
(9) A genetic connection will best ensure that the child shares
the significant interests and outlook of her parents, thus
making for more satisfying parenting and allowing
greater intimacy between parents and child.
10
Not all of these considerations are of relevance to cloning. For
obvious reasons, allowing cloning for the otherwise infertile
would on its own do nothing to enhance their sexual intimacy.
Moreover, (6) is not specifically relevant to biological children;
an adopted child will allow for parenting experience just as well.
The same might be said regarding (4), though as we shall see,
this can be disputed. Nevertheless, this still leaves a formidable
list of apparently weighty considerations.
8
J.M. Kaplan. 2000.
The Limits and Lies of Human Genetic Research: Dangers for
Social Policy
. New York. Routledge; R.C. Lewontin, R. Rose & L.J. Kamin. 1984.
Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature.
New York. Pantheon Books.
9
C. Strong. 2000. Cloning and Infertility. In
The Human Cloning Debate
(2
nd
ed). G. McGee, ed. Berkeley. Berkeley Hills Books: 184–215; at 188.
10
Reasons seven to nine are advanced forcefully in B. Almond. 1999. Family
Relationships and Reproductive Technology. In
Having and Raising Children:
Unconventional Families, Hard Choices, and the Social Good.
U. Narayan & J.J.
Bartkowiak, eds. University Park, Penn. The Pennsylvania State University Press:
103–118.
REPRODUCTIVE CLONING AND GENETIC FALLACY 237
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
Let us, then, assess the items on the list, taking them in reverse
order. Is it, first of all, true that a genetic connection will better
ensure that the child shares significant characteristics with its
parents, especially with that parent with whom it shares most of
its DNA? Gregory Pence is among those who believe that it is, and
that allowing parents to clone will reduce the chances that they
will be disappointed in the child:
One reason why some parents are disappointed stems from the
random pattern of gene assortment. It is true that two parent-
musicians would certainly be disappointed if their child was
tone-deaf, but how likely is that if the ancestor has perfect
pitch?
11
Others share his view. Michael Tooley holds that allowing cloning
would have benefits for the child, because at least one of her
parents would be better able to appreciate her point of view, due
to their great psychological similarity.
12
Brenda Almond goes fur-
ther, suggesting that the biological relation is the bearer of ‘what
might be called psychic similarity’:
Shared attitudes, appraisals, interests, tendencies, common
qualities of character, a common
Weltanschauung
– a character-
istic way of looking at the world.
13
Unfortunately for these philosophers, there is very little evidence
that genetics is anywhere near as important as they suggest. It is
extremely unlikely that a child’s genes determine its fundamental
outlook, its
Weltanschauung
. This is mere superstition, in the guise
of modern science. There is no gene for conservatism, nor for
Catholicism.
14
Of course, our genetic make-up contributes
some-
thing
to our characteristics; but the extent to which this is so is
very far from clear, and is certainly very much less than is com-
monly suggested. Evidence for the (often touted) heritability of
intelligence, for instance, is flawed at best.
15
A corollary of the
exaggerated attention paid to the genetic, of course, is a signifi-
cant disregard of the social: of the ways in which parents form
their children by educating and nurturing them. Yet the evidence
11
G.E. Pence. 1998.
Who’s Afraid of Human Cloning?
Lanham. Rowman &
Littlefield: 137.
12
Tooley,
op. cit
. note 6, p. 42.
13
Almond,
op. cit
. note 10, p. 104.
14
Kaplan,
op. cit
. note 8, p. 162, notes that an attorney specializing in contract
pregnancies in the United States allows his clients to select their ‘surrogate
mother’ on the basis,
inter alia
, of religion. Genetic determinism has become so
entrenched that people now attribute quasi-magical powers to genes.
15
Lewontin, et al.,
op. cit
. note 8.
238 DR NEIL LEVY AND DR MIANNA LOTZ
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
suggests that social factors are
at least
as important in making us
who we are.
In this context, Pence’s example is well chosen. Parents do not
best ensure that their child will have perfect pitch by paying
attention to its genetic makeup. Perfect pitch is an ability that all,
or very nearly all, children can acquire, if they need it. Speakers
of tonal languages – in which pitch is grammatically significant –
require much greater sensitivity to it than do speakers of non-
tonal languages such as English or French. Thus, whereas the
incidence of perfect pitch amongst speakers of European lan-
guages is about 1 in 10,000, it seems to be near universal among
speakers of Chinese and Vietnamese.
16
We suggest that this case
is typical: our most important individual characteristics are
acquired, not innate. This is most obviously the case for those
traits that constitute what Almond calls our
Weltanschauung
: our
political and world-views, our religion, our sense of what is impor-
tant and what trivial.
17
We turn, then, to (8), the claim that the genetic connection is
natural, and ought to be strengthened and protected for this
reason. At least in its crudest form, this claim can be dispensed
with relatively quickly. It is simply false to believe that the (sup-
posed) fact that something is natural supplies any normative
reasons. In spite of its temptations, the argument from the natu-
ralness of something to its desirability is open to decisive coun-
terexamples. For instance, it is true that one of this article’s
authors is naturally short-sighted. That is to say, unless he ‘inter-
feres’ with his physiological processes, he will not see clearly. Yet
it does not follow that it is inadvisable to so interfere. Indeed, it
is more plausible to believe that he is better off for having inter-
fered: for having had a pair of glasses made for him. Thus the
mere fact that something is natural does not suffice to show that
16
Scientific American Online. Perfect Pitch. (http://www.sciam.com/
exhibit/1999/110199pitch). Of course, Asians typically differ genetically from
Europeans in many – rather superficial – ways, but these genetic differences do
not correlate with ability to learn a tonal language as a first language. Indeed,
the genetic differences across ‘races’ are tiny and insignificant. For an overview,
see H. Kassim. 2002. ‘Race,’ Genetics, and Human Difference. In
A Companion
to Genethics
. J. Burley & J. Harris, eds. Oxford. Blackwell 2002: 302–316.
17
In stressing the importance of a genetic connection to children, propo-
nents of cloning find themselves in a bind that they appear not to have
noticed. To the extent that phenotypic traits are genetically determined, the
Weltanschauung
argument is strengthened, but so is the ‘open future’ objec-
tion. Typically, they have tried to circumvent this objection by arguing against
genetic determinism (Pence,
op. cit
. note 11; Tooley,
op. cit
. note 6, pp. 38–39).
But to the extent that they succeed, they undercut the
Weltanschauung
argument.
REPRODUCTIVE CLONING AND GENETIC FALLACY 239
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
it is normative for us, in any sense. It does not set standards by
which we ought to live.
18
However, there is perhaps another sense in which the genetic
connection to children is natural, and for that reason ought to
be preferred to other ways of becoming a parent. We have a
sociobiological argument in mind: perhaps parents are (uncon-
sciously?) motivated to have children by the urgings of their
‘selfish genes’. If this is the case, then perhaps parents will care
more deeply for a child who is a close relative of theirs. In other
words, perhaps (8) provides the explanation for why (7) is true:
for why parents can be expected to care better for biological
children than for adopted ones.
Brenda Almond is the most forceful advocate of this position.
She invokes the wisdom of Solomon here. His famous judgment
was predicated on the recognition that:
The true – that is, the biological – mother would prefer even
to sacrifice her own rights and her relationship with the child
if that was necessary to preserve the child’s life, and that it
was
for this very reason
that her rights and relationship should
be preserved.
19
In contrast, the quality of care when ‘purely social connections
are involved’ is questionable. When one considers ‘recent abuse
cases connected with children’s homes’ and sexual abuse of chil-
dren by stepparents, one realizes that biology remains the best
guarantee that children will be cared for, today as in Solomon’s
day. Human beings, like other animals, have ‘natural tendencies
and inclinations’ to care for their biological offspring, and we
disrupt these at our peril.
20
Or so it might be claimed.
Unfortunately, this is complete fantasy, just as it was in
Solomon’s day. Neither the sociobiological underpinnings nor
the supposed cross-cultural consensus to which Almond appeals
hold water. It is simplistic, from an evolutionary biological point
of view, to think that the characteristic of caring for one’s own
children, or at least for those who share a large proportion of our
genes, will automatically be selected for. It is certainly
possible
that
18
L.M. Antony. Nature and Norms.
Ethics
2000; 111: 8–36. In any case, there
is no definition of ‘natural’ that would permit cloning to count as securing a
natural
connection between people (unless one illegitimately substitutes the
term ‘natural’ for ‘genetic’). Offspring that are the near-identical genetic sib-
lings of their parents do not occur ‘naturally’, but instead require a great deal
of technological intervention.
19
Almond,
op. cit
. note 10, pp. 109–110.
20
Ibid., p. 108.
240 DR NEIL LEVY AND DR MIANNA LOTZ
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
selective pressures would increase the proportion of genes for
this kind of behaviour in a given population (assuming for the
moment, and very simplistically, that it even makes sense to talk
about genes for a complex behaviour of this kind). But it is
equally possible that selective pressures might favour other sorts
of behaviour, such as the tendency to care for those who are
physically proximate.
21
As for the cross-cultural consensus Almond cites, it too is non-
existent. As remarked earlier, an emphasis on the biological often
correlates with a disregard of the social and historical. Almond
does not need to check the facts concerning attitudes to children
in other times and places, since she knows that the dispositions
to care for biological offspring are innate, and therefore
cannot
be subject to change. If she had checked, she might have been
surprised. It is neither true that all cultures value blood ties to
children more than social ones, nor that blood ties are always
valued at all. Richard Lewontin, for instance, notes that some
cultures do not appear to value the blood connection at all:
The cultural pressure to preserve a biological continuity as the
form of immortality and family identity is certainly not a human
universal. For the Romans, as for the Japanese, the preservation
of family interest was the preeminent value, and adoption was
a satisfactory substitute for reproduction. Indeed, in Rome
the foster child (
alumnus
) was the object of special affection
by virtue of having been adopted, i.e., acquired by an act of
choice.
22
Thus, not all cultures care more for the genetic than for the
social. Indeed, not all cultures care very much for either – includ-
ing our own, until fairly recently. In 1960 Philippe Ariès contro-
versially argued that maternal relationships to children in the
Middle Ages were characterized by indifference.
23
More recent
evidence indicates that Ariès actually
under
estimated the extent
of that indifference. According to him, attitudes to children
began to alter in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. How-
ever, he drew his evidence too narrowly from the upper classes,
21
E. Sober. 1994. Did evolution make us psychological egoists? In his
From a
Biological Point of View: Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy
. Cambridge. Cambridge
University Press: 8–27.
22
R.C. Lewontin. 1998. The Confusion over Cloning. In Pence,
op. cit
. note
4, pp. 129–139; at 134. Kaplan (
op. cit
. note 8, p. 167) notes that the Trobriand
Islander (social) fathers do not distinguish between their (biological) children
and those born to the same mother but a different father.
23
P. Ariès. 1960.
L’enfant et la vie familale sous l’ancien regime.
Paris. Plon.
REPRODUCTIVE CLONING AND GENETIC FALLACY 241
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
and failed to notice that among the poverty stricken relative
indifference persisted well into the eighteenth century and prob-
ably later.
24
It simply is not true that a biological connection
itself
ensures that children will be well treated. It is neither necessary
nor sufficient for good childcare.
We can, then, discount the proposed biological justifications
for the claim that genetic parents can be expected to provide
better care for children than non-genetic parents. It is true that
studies into the patterns of child abuse appear to show that the
incidence of abuse is higher amongst children living with step
parents than amongst those living with parents with whom they
have a genetic relationship.
25
This suggests,
prima facie
, some
causal connection between biological relatedness and childcare
quality. However, that causal connection may be socially rather
than biologically constituted. That is, its existence may be
explained solely by reference to prevailing social attitudes about
the importance of genetic relatedness and the degree of respon-
sibility that flows from it. In a culture that venerates genetic
relationships, we might expect neglect of or harm to biological
offspring to be especially taboo. Thus, not only is there no sound
evidence to support the existence of a biological basis for better
parental care for biological offspring, there is no need even to
look for biological explanations. The social explanation offers
both a sufficient and sound causal account, should there be a
phenomenon to be accounted for.
Since we are here concerned with whether there is good reason
to have a
biological
child, and not with whether there is good
reason to have a child at all, we ignore the question of whether
child-rearing is a valuable experience. An adopted child provides
for this interest, if indeed it is significant. We also ignore the
question of whether the experience of pregnancy is valuable. It
may be that it is, but this is somewhat tangential to our concerns.
If a woman is otherwise infertile, but capable of bearing a child,
and if the experience of doing so is valuable, then it is an expe-
rience that is available to her independently of cloning. A
donated egg, fertilized with sperm from her partner or from
someone else, could be implanted in her uterus. On the other
hand, if the genetic connection is itself valuable, the question of
gestation ought to be irrelevant. (5) therefore has no bearing on
our discussion.
24
E. Stocker. 1976.
The Making of the Modern Family.
London. Collins.
25
M. Daly and M. Wilson. Evolutionary social psychology and family homi-
cide.
Science
1988; 242: 519–524.
242 DR NEIL LEVY AND DR MIANNA LOTZ
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
We turn now to (4). The notion that the biological connection
provides a link to future persons is of course true, but it is a
confusion to think that this justifies the biological. The person or
couple who adopts, or the woman who gestates an embryo to
which she has no genetic connection, assumes a connection to
future persons just as surely as does the genetic parent. It might
be argued, however, that the nature of this connection is different
in these cases, and that this difference is crucially important.
However, there seems to us to be no version of such an argument
that does not beg the question of the value of the genetic.
Some philosophers have urged an ‘immortality’ argument in
favor of the genetic: courtesy of the genetic connection, they
argue, our genes will survive our death; if we are lucky, they will
continue to do so for centuries or even millennia.
26
We can dis-
count this argument, for two reasons. Firstly, such a form of
immortality, in which copies of our genes persist whilst our psy-
chological continuity – that all-important signifier of identity – is
lost, is surely a very poor sort indeed, and barely worth its name.
Secondly, a brief consideration of the facts casts doubt on the
value of and need for this kind of genetic ‘immortality’. In the
normal case, our children share 50% of our genes.
27 Thus, our
grandchildren will each have 25% of our genes, and so on. In just
a few generations, the genetic proportion for which we are caus-
ally responsible will be very low. Unless we advocate its repeated
and widespread use, cloning is a poor way to ensure even an ersatz
kind of immortality. In any case, if we are concerned that our
genes survive our deaths, there are alternatives to having biolog-
ical children. Our efforts could be expended on caring for neph-
ews and nieces instead, for instance – each of them carries 25%
of our genes.
There are, moreover, different ways of ‘surviving’ one’s death.
One is genetic; another is social. Children can inherit not only
genes but also ideas and interests, political views and religious
commitments, and the like. We have a tendency to assume that
genetic ‘survival’ is superior, but we have no non-question-
begging arguments that support that assumption.
We turn, then, to the final two arguments in favour of a genetic
relationship to one’s children: (1) that it involves participation in
the creation of a person; and (2) that it is an expression of a
26 Pence, op. cit. note 11, p. 110.
27 More precisely, a child receives 50% of the small number of genes that
vary between human beings, from each of her parents. She shares the over-
whelming majority of her genes with all human beings; indeed, with other
primates as well.
REPRODUCTIVE CLONING AND GENETIC FALLACY 243
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2005
couple’s love for one another. These, we think, are prima facie the
most weighty moral considerations in favour of the biological. It
is a fact that many couples view the creation of a child, brought
forth out of both of their bodies, as the physical manifestation of
a union that is otherwise ‘merely’ symbolic. It makes real and
concrete their love for one another.28 The belief that it does
so is solidly based upon the biological fact that their sexual love
has begun the process of creating a new life. Through this expres-
sion of love we ‘participate in the mystery of the creation of
self-consciousness’.29 Thus, we might think, the biological child
as an affirmation of love has a metaphysical and spiritual signifi-
cance for which there is no social substitute.
While the two arguments appear closely bound – at least in the
above formulation – they are in fact not necessarily so. As will
become clear, there is no reason to think that biological children
embody their parents’ love in a way that social children do not
and cannot. The linking of these two arguments is a symptom of
precisely that which we seek to overturn: namely, an unwarranted
emphasis on the importance of biological as opposed to social
connectedness. Furthermore, the two arguments raise distinct
issues and are therefore best treated separately.
Let us start with the argument that biological parenting
involves participation in the ‘creation of a person’. Strong’s ref-
erence to the activity of ‘person creation’ is, of course, ambiguous
in the light of philosophical notions of ‘personhood’. If by ‘cre-
ation’ Strong simply has in mind ‘conception’, then there is no
sense in which people who decide to have a biological child are
– by dint of bringing about conception – engaged in the creation
of a ‘person’. If, on the other hand, Strong’s intended emphasis
is on the parents’ participation in the (gradual) development of
a person, then non-biological parents of adopted children engage
as surely in the ‘creation of a person’ as do biological parents.
Many of the pre-conditions for personhood – such as a sense of
a distinct self and identity, a Theory of Mind, and the like – do
not begin to emerge until the second year of life.30 It is the social
parents, and the social family more generally, who have the most
direct participation in, and make the greatest contribution to, the
development of the child’s self concept; and this is true irrespec-
tive of whether the social parents are also the biological parents.
28 P. Lauritzen. 1993. Pursuing Parenthood: Ethical Issues in Assisted Reproduction.
Bloomington. Indiana University Press: 72–76.
29 Strong, op. cit. note 9, p. 188.
30 See, for example, L.E. Berk. 1991. Child Development, second edition.
Boston. Allyn and Bacon: 434–437.
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Taken in the second sense, then, the desire to participate in the
creation of a person cannot count as a reason specifically and
exclusively in favour of biological parenting (by means of cloning
or otherwise).31
Consider, then, the second argument, viz. that biological
parenting is the expression and affirmation of a couple’s love
for one another. It is worth testing our intuitions here against a
range of cases, real and imagined, in order to see whether the
biological connection continues to have this significance across
a range of situations. Consider, first, an actual case, that of
Kimberly Mays:
In 1978, two baby girls were born within hours of each other
at a Florida hospital, the children of Robert and Barbara Mays
and Ernest and Regina Twiggs. At the age of nine, the Twiggs’
daughter died of a congenital heart defect. However, blood
tests revealed that she wasn’t their biological daughter. The
Twiggs’ realized that the children must have been swapped in
the hospital, and sued for custody of Kimberly.32
Now, according to the biological story just considered, it is
Kimberly Mays who is the living symbol of the Twiggs’ love for
one another. They were making a mistake when they lavished
affection on Arlena Twiggs. But surely this is implausible. Surely
a decade of raising a child has forged bonds more significant than
the mere biological, bonds that are more potent in their capacity
to affirm the Twiggs’ love for one another than is the fact of
biological relatedness. To be sure, perhaps the strength and depth
of those bonds owe something to each party’s belief that there is
a strong genetic connection. But the fact that it is belief in, and
31 Of course, it is true that people who engage in procreation are causally
responsible for the existence of beings who – all things going well – will become
persons. But since personhood develops gradually, after birth, this causal role
does not have the moral significance Strong imputes to it.
32 This case is discussed in Lauritzen, op. cit. note 28, pp. 76–78. He differs
from us in continuing to hold that Kimberly is the embodiment of the Twiggs’
love. More recent cases that test our intuitions about the significance of genetic
relatedness arise out of bungled IVF procedures. The Journal of Medical Ethics
recently reported on a case – whose broad type is not unique – in which a white
couple gave birth to black twins (M. Sprigge. IVF Mix-up: White Couple have
Black Babies. JME Data Supplement: eCurrent Controversies, at www.jme.bmj-
journals.com/cgi/content/full/27/6/DC1. We note that in such cases as these,
in which the unintended absence of genetic relationship becomes clear before
the social process of parenting has really commenced (i.e. at birth), our moral
intuitions are likely to be less clear than in the Kimberly Mays case, where we
might feel that there has been ample opportunity for the Mays couple to have
the love-affirming quality of their (albeit non-genetic) offspring manifested.
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not actual existence of, a genetic connection that secures the
salient bonds, only serve to emphasize that it is not biology that
underlies our personal ties, but (at best) beliefs about biology.
Such beliefs are social, and amenable to alteration.
Consider now a thought experiment, one well beyond our
current technological means, but in principle possible – the baby-
making machine:
The machine allows its operator to construct a viable embryo,
which is then implanted into a uterus (natural or artificial) and
brought to term. The operator can select the genotype of the
embryo, gene for gene. Thus she can build the baby from the
ground up. She can even, if she likes, make a genetic copy of
herself.
Notice that the operator of our machine is participating – very
directly – in the creation of new life. She is causally responsible
for the creation of a future person, who will be self-conscious. Yet
it is hard to endow her work with great spiritual significance.
Notice, too, that many of our common intuitions, which normally
strengthen our conviction that the genetic is important, are con-
fused by this thought experiment. One frequently cited piece of
alleged evidence for the importance of the genetic is the wish
commonly expressed by the adopted to meet their biological
parents.33 Now, even if it was granted that, given the current
climate of interest in the genetic, we all have a degree of curiosity
and desire to know the people responsible for our genotype, is
there any reason to think that such a desire would survive the
baby-making machine? Would the child want to meet the
machine’s operator? The only case in which she would, we sus-
pect, would be when her genotype is identical to that of the
operator, and then it would be out of mere curiosity rather than
any natural desire (and even this curiosity would be the expres-
sion of an inadequate understanding of genetics).
Consideration of these cases ought to help us shake off the
overemphasis on biology that too often structures our thinking.
There are actual and possible cases in which sharing a genotype
is of little significance. At the same time, there is no reason to
believe that other methods of entering into relationship with a
child cannot be imbued with all of the significance normally
attributed to the biological. There is no reason why an adopted
child cannot be considered the physical expression of a couple’s
love for one another, in a sense that is just as real as that invoked
33 Pence, op. cit. note 11, p. 110.
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by Lauritzen and Strong. The adopted child is the physical result
and embodiment of a joint decision of the couple to commit,
together, to the project of rearing and nurturing another human
being. It is the decision to parent together that expresses the
mutual love, trust, and commitment of partners in a relationship;
and it does so irrespective of whether the resulting child is the
biological product of the parents or not.
There are, then, no sound arguments for cloning that do not
rest upon a mistaken view of the significance of a genetic connec-
tion of parents to their children. Why would anyone go to all the
expense and trouble of cloning, either themselves or another
person, unless they thought that genotype really mattered?34 If
they simply wanted a child, they could adopt; if they believed that
a biological (though not genetic) connection was important, and
they were capable of bearing a child, they could have an embryo
implanted. Perhaps the biological connection matters, to some
extent; perhaps, that is, the experience of pregnancy and child-
birth forms bonds that are significant and valuable. But that is
irrelevant to the topic of cloning. Such experiences are available
to those physically capable of them, whether cloning is permitted
or not. It is simply a modern form of superstition that leads us to
attribute such importance to the genetic.
So far, however, we have at best shown that the strongest argu-
ment for cloning – the genetic argument – is in fact rather weak.
Undermining this argument for cloning is therefore undermining
the argument for cloning. But undermining an argument for a
policy or action is not the same thing as showing that the policy
or action is impermissible. We turn now to a consideration of why
cloning ought not to be permitted.
REINFORCING THE GENETIC
We have shown that the grounds most commonly cited for pur-
suing cloning do not withstand critical scrutiny. But there are
independent reasons for opposing cloning, which are broadly
consequentialist in nature. The core of the argument we have in
mind is that cloning should be opposed because permitting it will
reinforce an over-emphasis on the genetic that is both unwar-
ranted and unfortunate. Permitting cloning will allow people
to give free reign to their biologistic fantasies; it will strengthen
the impression that biology is destiny, or at least a significant
34 Current estimates of the cost of a single live birth of a human clone are
about $150 million; the process would require approximately fifty surrogate
mothers. See P. Singer. The Year of the Clone? Free Inquiry 2001; 21: 13.
REPRODUCTIVE CLONING AND GENETIC FALLACY 247
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constraint upon destiny. And there are strong consequentialist
reasons for preventing such views from becoming further
entrenched.
Whatever benefits we might still think cloning could provide,
permitting cloning would bring certain harms that, we believe,
outweigh the potential benefits. One class of potential harms is
of particular concern: namely those harms that will be incurred
as a result of the impact of cloning upon the practice of adoption.
If cloning were to become widely available, the primary motive
for adoption would be removed. It may be that some people adopt
children primarily out of altruistic motives; that is, they recognise
that there are children with significant needs that they are in a
position to satisfy, and they decide to adopt a child (or more than
one) in order to fulfil those needs. However, if they exist at all,
purely altruistic adopters of this kind are almost certainly in a
small minority. The majority of those who adopt children do so
because they desire to have a child, and adoption offers them the
(only) opportunity to do so.
What, then, will be the likely impact of cloning upon current
adoption practices? In a climate in which genetic connection is
so highly (yet unwarrantedly) esteemed, it is reasonable to think
that widespread access to cloning will result in (i) more unwanted
children languishing in institutional care (while people who could
have provided them with good homes, and have a desire to have
a child, choose to clone themselves instead of adopting someone
else’s biological offspring); and (ii) those parents who are averse
to the likelihood of (i), will opt to keep their children rather than
offering them for adoption, a ‘choice’ that is both not fully free
and potentially counterproductive for parent(s) and child(ren).
The result is an overall diminution in the satisfaction of
needs (or desires or preferences).35 This can be seen from a
comparison of need-satisfaction in the adoption scenario and
need-satisfaction in the cloning scenario. In the case of adoption,
need fulfilment is symmetrical: an existing child’s need for a
parent is fulfilled by an adoptive parent whose own need (or
35 Needs are more appropriately attributed to infant human beings than are
preferences. However, in respect of would-be parents, it may be more appropri-
ate and less controversial to speak of preferences or desires for children, rather
than of needs. Importantly, the consequentialist calculation is not adversely
affected by this slippage between terms. Indeed, one avenue open to the conse-
quentialist is to compare the moral significance of need satisfaction with the
moral significance of (mere) preference satisfaction, finding that adoption is
morally desirable on the grounds that needs as opposed to (mere) preferences
are fulfilled.
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preference/desire) for a child is, in turn, satisfied. By contrast,
cloning involves unilateral and asymmetrical need-satisfaction: of
the parents for a (biological) child. Cloning fulfils no need on
the part of the future clone-child (who does not yet exist, and
would not otherwise have existed). What is more, not only does
cloning not fulfil any needs of the clone-child, it involves the
avoidable neglect of the significant needs of existing children.
Where cloning is unavailable (and unnecessary institutional bar-
riers to adoption are removed) some people will be forced to
satisfy their own needs (or preferences/desires) in a way that
simultaneously satisfies other significant existing needs. Thus need sat-
isfaction is maximised in a world in which cloning is unavailable;
and on such consequentialist grounds cloning should be opposed.
There is a second consequentialist consideration worth noting.
It might be suggested that the genetic bias is based on, or at least
heavily influenced by, a proprietarian conception of the relation-
ship of children to parents. One reason given for the preference
for genetic connectedness is that the genetically related child is,
in some sense, ‘more my own’ than the child who is purely socially
connected to me.36 According to one version of the proprietarian
view, whatever we produce, we justifiably own. Parental ownership
rights are sometimes grounded in Lockean labour theories of
ownership; or they may be based on the principle of self-owner-
ship, according to which ‘. . . genetic parents maintain a defeasi-
ble right over the child, since they provide the constitutive genetic
material.’37 Proponents of this view argue that ownership and
property rights over the child are based upon the parents’ own-
ership over their own genetic material, a proposition that is itself
open to serious question.38
Whatever the precise intentions of those who express the view
that biological children are more ‘their own’ than non-biological
children, genuinely proprietarian views of children have been
discredited, and for good reason. The rights and obligations of
parents with respect to children cannot be rendered analogous
to the rights and obligations of private ownership. Theorists
point out that the rights of parenthood are: contingent on the
36 Strong does not explicitly refer to this reason, but it is not rare, and indeed
may accompany (9), that is, the view that a genetic connection best ensures that
children share the significant interests and outlook of their parents, thus making
for more satisfying parenting and allowing for greater parent-child intimacy.
37 See, for example, B. Hall. The Origin of Parental Rights. Public Affairs
Quarterly 1999; 13: 73–82.
38 See A. Kolers & T. Bayne. ‘Are You My Mommy?’: On the Genetic Basis of
Parenthood. Journal of Applied Philosophy 2001; 18: 273–286.
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fulfilment of certain social obligations; regulated by the well-
being of the thing that is ‘owned’ (the child, in this case); not
based on any notion of the owned object’s scarcity; not readily
distributable between mother and father; subject to legitimate
claims by the ‘owned’ (the child); and wane over time in a way
that private property ownership in the main does not.39 In addi-
tion, modern conceptions of the moral status of human beings –
even minors – preclude them from being justifiably regarded as
the sorts of things that can be owned as private property. To most,
the idea that parents own their children in much the same way
as they might own their cars, is ‘deeply and rightly, repugnant.’40
Yet we might plausibly think that permitting cloning in a context
in which the genetic is over-valued will give proprietarian attitudes
more ‘leash’ than is desirable.
Finally, we believe that permitting cloning would tend to
encourage the current over-valuation of the importance of genet-
ics in general, not just in relation to children. In the midst of a
resurgence of interest in innateness and biology, a corresponding
reduction in the importance accorded to the social and the polit-
ical is conceivable and worth resisting. There is a danger that what
are in fact false genetic determinist views will be used to buttress
opposition to, or at least a reduction in, the use of public funds
to improve the life prospects of the disadvantaged. We believe
that the genetic arguments for disadvantage are confused, and
that a great deal can be accomplished through properly designed
and targeted social programs. We therefore oppose cloning,
because we believe that permitting it would encourage the kind
of social and political climate in which these social programs are
threatened.
By contrast, opposing cloning can play a part in the wider
project of shifting perceptions about the genetic. The vast
resources that would otherwise be expended on cloning can be
used on encouraging adoption,41 and on educating the public on
the real (limited) importance of the role of genes in forming the
traits we come to possess. Most importantly, this money could be
39 Ibid; D. Archard. Child Abuse: Parental Rights and the Interests of the
Child. Journal of Applied Philosophy 1990; 7: 183–194, especially 186–187.
40 Ibid.
41 Lauritzen (op. cit. note 28, p. 126) points out that mothers who give up
their children for adoption almost invariably so do because of poverty. This is
not, however, a reason to discourage adoption, as he seems to think, at least not
under current conditions. If we limit the number of adoptions, whilst leaving
the causes of poverty unaltered, we worsen the situation of these mothers and
their children.
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spent on the social programs that the emphasis on genetics would
otherwise lead us to downplay: programs aimed at poverty
alleviation, at education, and at improving the life prospects of
those born into the under-classes. The belief, all too frequently
expressed, that the problems of these people are genetic in ori-
gin, is pernicious and false; permitting cloning would tend only
to reinforce it.
Dr Neil Levy
Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics
Department of Philosophy
University of Melbourne
Parkville Vic 3010
Australia
nllevy@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Mianna Lotz
Department of Philosophy
Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy
Macquarie University
New South Wales, 2190
Australia
Mianna.Lotz@scmp.mq.edu.au
