y Human cloning: A horror for the children
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CLONING: A Horror for the Children

March 4, 2001

by Danila Oder, Organic Consumers Association

An international group of physicians recently announced that cloned human babies will be born by 2003. In the U.S., only California has declared human cloning illegal. In ten years, therefore, kindergarten teachers elsewhere may have to explain to children that the new little boy is not his father's son, exactly, or his twin, exactly, or his brother; he is his father's clone. A popular song that mocks hillbilly breeding goes, "I'm my own grandpaw!" Now it can be true.

An invariant law of social behavior is: once a technology is available, it will be used. Even Meiji Japan, willfully isolated and ruled by a traditional samurai aristocracy, used Portuguese firearms. And so the only brake on value-free scientific curiosity and the yuppie acquisitiveness will be public awareness of the consequences of cloning for the children themselves.

Here is a child, a clone. His father's DNA placed into his mother's egg, he is born of her womb. Is he a perfect replica of his father? Physically yes, if all goes well and he belongs to the 1-2% of cloned eggs that survive gestation.* But his life experience will be different.

All children feel inferior to their parents, but are protected from corrosive envy by the knowledge that they have unique abilities. Not so the clone. As soon as he knows his origin, he will compare himself to his father. Is he measuring up? Has he achieved as much as his father did at the same age? He can't blame nature, only nurture-and his own weakness. No child should bear this burden.

When he goes out in public with his father, will the clone feel different from other children? He doesn't have his own face; it's borrowed from the original. To the people who say, "You look just like your father," what will he reply? No child should have to be constantly reminded of his origin in a test-tube.

And the parents: what if the child disappoints them, being less able than his father? They can't blame nature or God. Inevitably they will blame a clone more than a normal child.

There will always be a great many people who feel only horror at the reality of cloned humans. At best, they will try to hide their repugnance, but the child will feel it. No child should bear this burden.

Unless the word is banished-undoubtedly, some life sciences company that benefits from cloning will tell us that cloning is for animals and reproductive copying is for people-cloned children are destined from birth for the psychotherapist. Anti-discrimination laws will protect cloned adults, but cloned children will always feel different.

We sympathize with parents who want to bear children with their own genetic material. But cloning will have such devastating effects on the child that it should be banned now.

*in animal cloning.

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