---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 11:53:30 -0600
From: Gregory Pence <pence@uab.edu>
To: alexboko@toastman.us.itd.umich.edu
Subject: Here it comes!
Dear Alex,
You are your list may be interested to learn that my attack on Clinton's
proposed ban on human cloning, WHO'S AFRAID OF HUMAN CLONING? is about to
come out. It may be found on Amazon.com or ordered at a 20% prepublication
discount (off the $11 ppbk price) at 1-800-462-6420 from Rowman &
Littlefield publishers.
The front matter for the book (Preface, Contents, etc) is below:
Preface
At the end of June 1997, I had the opportunity to meet the man who
cloned Dolly, Ian Wilmut, and to discuss with him some of the issues
discussed in this book. Although he does not agree with my position on
human cloning, I have been enriched by meeting Ian Wilmut.
The opportunity to meet Dr. Wilmut came at the first major
conference on human cloning after the announcement of Dolly, and it was
organized in Washington, D.C.,--by French Anderson, Art Caplan, Alex
Capron, and Craig Venter-- to come just after the Report "Cloning Human
Beings" was issued by the National Advisory Bioethics Commission (NBAC).
Although I had already written over half of this book, this conference
provided a great chance to improve it by meeting the leading people in the
world in mammalian cloning, health law, genetic research, and bioethics. In
addition, there were trademark attorneys and venture capitalists, experts
in primate twinning, philosophy professors, and representatives of various
religions. In short, it promised to be one of those extraordinarily
exciting conferences in bioethics when the best people are pulled together
to discuss a new development.
What was disappointing to me about the conference was that none of
the speakers was willing to defend human cloning in any way. It seems that
a consensus had developed among bioethicists, theologians, and scientists
that this was a side not to be defended. In one of my only comments at this
conference, I criticized the one-sidedness of the presentations and
suggested that professionalism in bioethics meant that each side had to be
defended with logic and passion, and that this had not been done. In reply,
I was told that "perhaps a consensus has developed that human cloning
should never be done and that is why only one side is represented."
But how can a "consensus" develop when the arguments are never
made? When there is no discussion? No debate? I left disappointed.
There will be other books that discuss the events that led up to
the cloning of Dolly and the reaction to that event. Journalists will rush
to get books out, and there will be a lot of quotations in them from
various people about what human cloning means.
In contrast, this book is unabashedly philosophical and one-sided.
I am making the case for human cloning first because there is a terrible
one-sidedness to the "discussion" so far and second, because I believe that
my position is true.
Acknowledgments
I owe many people for helping me to write this book and I wish to thank
them here: Bob Blaylock, an editor at the Birmingham News, for getting me
to write an Op-Ed on human cloning after the announcement of Dolly's birth;
Rosemarie Tong and Lance Stell, for inviting me to Davidson College, where
they and their students made several nice suggestions; microbiologist Susan
Self, for inviting me to discuss human cloning in her honors seminar at
UAB; the inaugural class of the executive masters' program in Health
Administration, especially John Comstock, MD; the classes of 1999 and 2000
of the UAB Medical School. Sarah Moyers at McGraw-Hill, for allowing me to
delay the 3rd edition of Classic Cases in Medical Ethics; James Pittman,
the former Dean of the UAB Medical School, for advice, encouragement, and a
constant stream of sources; Stephen Jay Gould, whose visit to UAB in May
and whose brief discussion of human cloning with me at dinner helped me to
understand the importance of conjoined twins in this debate; Harold
Kincaid, G. Lynn Stephens, Florence Siegal, and the perceptive students in
my senior seminar and bioethics classes in the first half of 1997.
Philosopher Richard Mohr made helpful suggestions about gay issues and
cloning.
I also wish to thank the librarians at the Lister Hill Library for
Medical Sciences and at the Sterne Library, especially Diann Weatherly. The
financial support of the UAB Medical School allowed me to attend the first
conference on the ethics of mammalian cloning, for which I am grateful.
Biologist Thanne Whibbels, Ona Marie Faye-Petersen of the
Anatomical Pathology department and Jerry Thompson of Medical Genetics, all
at UAB, reviewed various parts of the manuscript and answered my questions.
UAB biologist Ann Cusick delayed packing for her trip to Alaska to make
sure I understood embryology before she left. Mike Miller, while writing an
honors thesis with me on human cloning, helped proofread this manuscript
and gather sources for it.
I owe a huge debt to my next-door neighbor, James Rachels, who
read the manuscript and made many valuable suggestions about organization,
arguments, ethical theory, and strategy. I am deeply in debt for his help
and encouragement. Another colleague, Mary Whall, carefully read the entire
manuscript shortly before it went to press, performing in a superogatory
fashion and greatly improving the book. I am really in her debt,too. Robert
Angus, who teaches various genetics courses at UAB, read key parts of the
manuscript and corrected some of my mistakes (of course, what mistakes
remain are mine alone). Sociologist Jay Hughes and an anonymous reviewer
for Rowman & Littlefield were ideal, constructive, informative reviewers.
My wife Pat has also supported this book from the get-go, read and
commented on parts of it, and I also thank her for tolerating my absences
during the first three months when I was so immersed in the details of
cloning.
Christa Davis Acampora, in her time as Philosophy Editor at Rowman
& Littlefield, and later her assistant, Robin Adler, were exceptionally
helpful and enthusiastic about this project.
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was slightly gray
It didn't' have a father, just some borrowed DNA
It sort of had a mother, though the ovum was on loan,
It was not so much a lambkin as a little lamby clone
And soon it had a fellow clone, and soon it had some more,
They followed her to school one day, all cramming through the door.
It made the children laugh and sing, the teachers found it droll,
There were too many lamby clones, for Mary to control.
No other could control the sheep, since the programs didn't vary
So the scientists resolved it all, by simply cloning Mary.
But now they feel quite sheepish, those scientists unwary,
One problem solved but what to do, with Mary, Mary, Mary.
Anonymous post on the Internet
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
Poem: Mary Had A Little Lamb
Chapter 1 From Dolly to Humans?
Chapter 2 Dolly's Importance and Promise
What Wilmut Did and Why It Was Important
What Cloning Can and Cannot Physically Reproduce
The New Genetic Age
Genetic Contributions of the Host Egg
The Mistake of Genetic Determinism
Chapter 3 The False Seers of Assisted Human Reproduction
Beware False Prophets of Doom
Clone Furor: First Wave
Clone Furor: Second Wave
Clone Furor: Third Wave
The National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC)
Chapter 4 Misconceptions
Our Legacy from Science Fiction
Making Women Visible
They Would Be People
You Can't Reproduce Yourself
Lack of Informed Consent Doesn't Matter
Scientists Aren't Frankensteins and Strangeloves
Reproductive Freedom Doesn't Lead to Coercive Eugenics
Chapter 5 Four Questions about Ethics
Does the Rule Intrude Too Much on Personal Liberty?
What is the Point of the Moral Rule?
Why Assume the Worst Motives?
Why Fear Slippery Slopes?
Chapter 6 Cloning and Sex
Making Babies without Sex: Morally Repugnant?
Plain Sex
Meilaender's Testimony
Chapter 7 Twinning Human Embryos
Overview of the Embryo Controversy
Why Embryos are not Persons
Controversies over Embryos
The Futility of the Human Embryo Panel
Embryo Research Today: Craziness of the Hughes Incident
Importance of Wilmut's Discoveries: Understanding
Humans
New Calls for Banning Research on Embryos; What is Lost
Chapter 8 Arguments for Allowing Human Asexual Reproduction
Personal Liberty and the Right to Self-Reproduce
Benefit to Children - Improving Genetic Inheritance
Benefit to Children: Genetic Therapy
Aiding Infertile Couples
Valuing the Genetic Connection
Generalizing the Genetic Connection
Rawls' Argument
Children for Gay Men and Lesbians
Chapter 9 Arguments Against Human Asexual Reproduction
Against the Will of God
Fear of the New and Different
Genetic Diversity and Evolution
Risk of Harm to the Child (I) Mistakes in Development
Risk of Harm to the Child (II): Unrealistic
Expectations
Increasing Prejudice against the Disabled; Fostering
Sexism; Slippery Slopes, and Nature versus
Nurture
Chapter 10 Regulating Cloning
The Case against Regulation
Against Commercialization
The Case for Regulation
The Issue of Multiples
Chapter 11 Conclusions
A Good Religious Objection to Cloning?
Improving Humanity
Alternative Pasts and Social Control
Beneficent Multiples
A Final Prediction
Dedication
Within the last two years, bioethicists and philosophers David James of Old
Dominion University and Benjamin Freedman of McGill University died
suddenly at mid-life. They will be missed by the entire bioethics
community.
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greg pence
professor, dept. philosophy & school of medicine
u. alabama at birmingham (UAB) b'ham, al 35294-1260
205 934-8922 fax 205 975-6639 email pence@uab.edu
http://www.uab.edu/philosophy/pence.htm
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