Last month’s announcement of the first scientific attempts to clone a human being have provoked much discussion and opinion on the ethical issue, including those involved in similar fields at NIU.

On Jan. 26, a group of fertility experts from several countries announced they want to produce the first human clone within the next 18 to 24 months.

Panayiotis Michael Zavos, a University of Kentucky professor of reproductive physiology, made the announcement that he will join the international team intending to clone a human being. Zavos later said human cloning is inevitable, but it was preferable for it to happen in the open, involving qualified personnel.

“I think the reason for doing it is basically scientific curiosity,” said James Hudson, an NIU philosophy professor who has recently been studying the ethics of genetic engineering. “I don’t see it as having [many] significant practical applications. Cloning in and of itself looks like it will be a dead end.

“A lot of other uses of these techniques might be important, such as to delete bad genes. That is where the real action is, I think,” Hudson added.

Human cloning possibilities became more of a reality when scientists cloned Dolly, a sheep, in Scotland about four years ago.

This opened up a wealth of possibilities for the future, but also closed doors. Recently, the British government reaffirmed a ban on any human cloning, and then-President Bill Clinton placed a ban on federal funds for cloning research in 1997. Additionally, eight states have banned cloning an entire human being.

Despite the presidential ban, outlawing cloning on the federal level is not likely for the entire United States, said Andrea Bonnicksen, an NIU political science professor.

“After the birth of Dolly the lamb in 1997, seven or eight bills were introduced to the U.S. Congress to bar human cloning research, and none of them passed,” Bonnicksen said. “I would suspect that, with the news that scientists are attempting to clone a human being, more bills will be introduced or old ones will be resurrected.”

Bonnicksen said the kinds of bills introduced have varied.

“Some have been to prohibit federal funding of research into human cloning, others have been to make it illegal to conduct cloning,” she said. “And there has been a distinction between barring the funding to create an embryo in the first place, through cloning, and to transfer the embryo to a woman’s uterus.”

Bonnicksen, whose area of study is biopolitics, said she didn’t think the likelihood of any of the bills passing was very great.

“I think the bills that were introduced were very broad, and they might inadvertently forbid or make illegal activities outside of cloning,” Bonnicksen said. “I don’t think there would be public support of broad legislation. If the [public] were to favor legislation, it would probably [favor] narrowly crafted [legislation].”

Bonnicksen’s ideas on legislation appear to mirror Hudson’s sentiment on the subject. He supports cautious steps forward in the area of cloning and genetic engineering.

“I don’t see any valid reason for stopping,” he said. “The babies he produces will just be babies, the only problem I can see is a legal one, producing babies may require some additions to our laws.”

Hudson thinks much of that would happen with courts making decisions, and then adhering to precedent.

In the past few years, statements similar to Zavos’s have been made by Chicago physicist Richard Seed and a Canadian religious group, but those claims seem to be nothing more that publicity stunts thus far.

While the legality of cloning is not likely to be contested, it is considered a touchy subject in America, which might have led to Zavos claims that he intends to use his procedures for the benefit of infertile couples, Hudson said.

“I don’t see many people as wanting to do this . . .there may be a few egomaniacs who want another instance of themselves, but I can’t think that would be a very common motive,” Hudson said. “But if it turns out I am wrong about that, I don’t see any problem with it, except that it would be a little silly. But there is a lot that is silly in human behavior, and this wouldn’t be a shocking addition to the list.”