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Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)
A Wellness Perspective on Cloning
I'm often asked, "Don, what is the wellness perspective on cloning?" Why me, Lord? Why do I get questions like this? Oh well, it must be my cross to bear, so to speak. Actually, I don't really get asked this question very often, in fact, I've never been asked about a wellness position on cloning, which is just as well, since there is no wellness position on anything! There is no person, group or association that speaks for the wellness movement or has the authority or chutzpah (so far) to claim to speak for wellness promoters.
This is quite a contrast to the attitude of many religious leaders, who somehow feel elected, authorized or otherwise blessed as press agents for God. They proclaim or assume a position as conduits through whom the deity shares his or her opinions.
If I were asked about cloning, I'd suggest that nothing be done to discourage continued scientific advances, which contribute to improvements in human welfare, unless the threat of some explicit harm seems a likely consequence. What do you think? My sense is that ethical questions are best addressed openly and with tolerance for varied viewpoints. If there are concerns, chances are that guidelines can be developed that will enable us to prevent abuses AND make the benefits of cloning available. The key challenge in my view is to avoid political action that would block the freedom and integrity of scientific research.
My good friend, retired emeritus professor of philosophy John Bailiff of Wisconsin, advises that his only objection to cloning is the problem that leads him to oppose inbreeding; it could reduce genetic diversity (in fact, eliminate it for the first generation offspring). Of course, that would be significant only over some time and multiple generations (just like isolated villages). Otherwise, you'd just have a kid genetically like you. And we all know what kind of problems THAT leads to! A clone is only a genetic copy, after all; everything else is development. John advises those interested in the issue of Cloning to read Heinlein's A Boy and His Dog.
Also, don't overlook the fact that nobody has demonstrated the capability to clone humans. Yet, the very possibility that contemporary achievements may open a path toward human cloning sparked a hail of silly protests, much of it of a theatrical and political nature from the Clinton Administration in the USA, the Chirac Administration in France and the Vatican in Rome. Reason has not prevailed in the recent flood of attacks on cloning. Critics have delighted in drawing parallels to the myth of Icarus and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, predicting terrible consequences if researchers dare to press on with questions whose answer is "man was not meant to know." Pardon me? "Man was not meant to know?" Nonsense -- man is not "meant" to know or not know anything, in my view. Humans should learn whatever they can about everything they can learn to comprehend —and then make ethical choices about what to do with such knowledge.
As Milton Berle once noted, if it hadn't been for Thomas Edison, we'd all be watching television by candlelight.
As far as the scientific enterprise can determine, Homo sapiens is a member of the animal kingdom. Human beings are not fundamentally different from other mammals. Our capabilities appear to differ in degree, not in kind, from those found among the higher animals. Humanity's rich repertoire of thoughts, feelings, aspirations and hopes seems to arise from electrochemical brain processes, not from an immaterial soul that operates in ways no instrument can discover. But, that's just my opinion—I recognize and respect other points of view.
Getting back to cloning—remember that religious objections were once raised against autopsies, anesthesia, artificial insemination and the entire genetic revolution of our day— yet enormous benefits have accrued from each of these developments. A view of human nature rooted in humanity's tribal past ought not to be our primary criterion for making moral decisions about cloning.
These are not just my opinions but also those of the members of the International Academy of Humanism. I completely agree with them.
What about you? Do you support the idea of learning what we can about everything there is to know, despite our limitations and imperfections? Alternately, does it seem appropriate to ask or to ponder these kinds of issues as part of a wellness consciousness? As usual, agree or otherwise, I'd love to hear from you.
Domain: purposeSubdomain: applied wellness
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