Cloned people live how long. Human cloning is strictly prohibited in Russia. Religious aspect: man in the role of God

According to leading Russian geneticists, with the current level of development of biomedical technologies, it is possible to produce a human being from a single cell. Another question is whether this method of reproduction is acceptable from a moral and religious point of view - after all, a cloned person will not have parents. Can an artificial being be free?

The question of whether human reproduction is possible through non-sexual means at the present stage of scientific development was answered positively by Alexander Sobolev, head of the laboratory of molecular genetics of intracellular transport at the Institute of Gene Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor of the Department of Biophysics of the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University, Doctor of Biological Sciences, during the XIII conference “Science” . Philosophy. Religion", held at the United Institute nuclear research Dubna and organized with the support of the Foundation of the Holy All-Praised Apostle Andrew the First-Called.

According to the scientist, “the issue of human cloning is more ethical than biological” and this issue is “unlikely to become a subject of discussion in the coming years.”

In turn, Hieromonk Dimitry (Pershin), senior teacher at the state medical university Roszdrav, told reporters about the attitude Orthodox Church to human cloning:

Print version Font Send friend- Analysis similar problems and the development of solutions occurs with the participation of the Church-Public Council on Biomedical Ethics, which includes doctors, priests, scientists, theologians, philosophers, and lawyers. In 2000, the Jubilee Council of Bishops adopted the “Fundamentals social concept Russian Orthodox Church", a separate section of which is devoted to biomedical ethics, including human cloning. The Church consistently advocates for the defense of man at all stages of his development, including the embryonic stage, and therefore cannot support the idea of ​​therapeutic cloning, which involves the creation of a human embryo with the purpose of its subsequent destruction. It is unacceptable to turn human life into raw materials.

It is very important for me that Russia’s position on this issue coincides with the position reflected in the fundamental international documents that guide the world community. For example, the “Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights”, adopted by UNESCO on November 11, 1997, states: “the practice of cloning for the purpose of human reproduction is prohibited” because it is “contrary to human dignity.” And in the “Declaration on Human Cloning” of March 8, 2005, the UN directly appeals to member states to “prohibit all forms of human cloning to the extent that they are incompatible with human dignity and protection.” human life" These documents are based on the norms formulated in the Nuremberg Code, adopted in 1947 as a result of investigations into the crimes of fascist doctors, as well as in the Declaration of Helsinki, adopted in 1964 by the World Medical Assembly.

I believe that moral standards do not become obsolete with the development of biomedical technologies. I am convinced that the ancient covenant of Hippocrates “do no harm,” which the father of European medicine extended to human embryos, is still relevant today. In the language of the Bible, this commandment is known to everyone: “Thou shalt not kill.” I hope that moral responsibility will prevail and an absolute ban on cloning person will be extended. We all need this to remain human.

In the case of human cloning, there is no doubt that we will be talking about the reproduction of human life. Just as a cloned sheep was a sheep, so in the case of human cloning, it will be a person who will appear, therefore all moral and legal norms, protecting human life.

First of all, cloning- this is an experiment. And an experiment in which a person is the subject is unacceptable without his free and voluntary consent. In the case of human cloning, it is impossible to ask for this consent, since the one from whom we must first obtain it appears as a result of this experiment. Thus, the fundamental right of a person not to be a hostage to someone’s manipulations with his life and health is initially violated.

This alone is a sufficient argument against human cloning, but there are also purely medical arguments that strengthen this position. The fact is that, as far as I know, to date it has been possible to clone quite a large number of animals - cats, pigs, cows, mules, mice. However, as scientists note, deviations from the norm and various forms of disability are common among cloned animals. The first cloned animal, Dolly the sheep, was euthanized in 2003 at exactly six and a half years old, although many sheep live for more than 10 years. She developed progressive lung disease, which usually affects older sheep, as well as premature arthritis. Some cloning experts have hypothesized that cloned humans may require hip replacements as early as adolescence, and old age can begin by the age of 20. I'm not even talking about the low efficiency of the method (less than 10%), about the syndrome of large offspring, which creates serious problems for the pregnant mother. I think that Dolly's creator, Sir Wilmut, had every reason to assert when he spoke in the US Congress that similar experiments on humans were completely unacceptable.

One cannot help but agree that there is a hypothetical possibility of reproducing human life through cloning, but what would that life be like? Why are the interests of science taken into account and the interests of man himself completely ignored? What problems await such a person - with his health, psyche, spiritual life? What will a society be like in which a child can become his mother's sister, his father's brother, or his grandfather's daughter? A far from complete list of these issues shows that a firm and clear moral position is needed here, limiting the claims of scientists.

No less immoral is the desire to clone a person in order to disassemble him into genetically compatible organs and tissues. Finally, it is dishonest to raise a human being in order to satisfy someone else's desire to have a child with given parameters.

A person is not a unit that can be disassembled for spare parts, not raw materials for the manufacture of drugs, not fuel for the development of scientific and technological progress. Good goals are not achieved through bad means.

At the heart of all these inhumane initiatives is a utilitarian attitude towards human life. The very way of thinking is unacceptable, in which a person at the embryonic stage of his development is seen only as raw material for the production of drugs or experiments with stem cells.

On the tongue international law this moral maxim is: “No research concerning the human genome, nor any applied research in this field, especially in the fields of biology, genetics and medicine, must not take precedence over respect for the human rights, fundamental freedoms and human dignity of individuals or, where appropriate, groups of people.” (“Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights”, Art. 10)

Scientific progress testifies that man is truly the image of God; he is endowed with the highest gifts of personal freedom, reason and creativity. Unfortunately, these gifts can also be deployed against the person himself. That is why the Church draws a clear line in the field of those scientific achievements that can affect a person. If we talk about cloning, we have no objections to the breeding of new breeds of animals, the creation of individual human organs and tissues, but at the same time it is unacceptable to satisfy scientific curiosity by turning human life itself into an experimental object.

January 12, 1998 24 states out of 43 member countries of the Council of Europe signed Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Human Dignity, prohibiting human cloning. March 1, 2001 After ratification by 5 countries, this Protocol entered into force. On this moment is the only international act regulating the problem. So why can't we clone people?

Let's understand the nuances

In Jewish mythology - Golem, in Western European literature - Frankenstein. Humanity has always been fascinated by the problem of creating living beings in laboratory conditions. The existence of twins suggested the idea of ​​the possibility of somehow obtaining an exact copy of real-life people.

Nascent at first XXcentury new scientific discipline genetics advanced humanity to understand the processes of transmission of hereditary characteristics in living organisms and the formation of new ones. Started in the 70s last century, work on deciphering the human genome by the beginning of the new millennium made it possible to obtain a fairly accurate idea of ​​its structure. In the 90s The scientific community has formed a belief about the fundamental possibility of human cloning.

Clone– a conditionally exact copy of a certain object. Terms "clone", "cloning" initially used in microbiology and breeding, then in genetics, due to the success of which they came into general use.

Human cloning is the technology of creating a human embryo and growing from it people whose genotype will be identical to the genotype of existing or deceased individuals. You just need to realize that a clone cannot be an exact copy of a person. When cloning, only genotype, but not phenotype. Phenotype- a set of external and internal characteristics of an organism acquired as a result individual development. Consciousness as well.

The story of Dolly the sheep

Dolly the sheep gave birth to three lambs. 1999 Photo: ITAR/TASS

In 1996 An event occurred that made people talk about the possible cloning of people. IN Roslyn Institute around Edinburgh Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell During the experiment, they were able to clone the first mammal - a sheep. The genetic information for the cloning process was taken from the adult differentiated cells of the animal that had died by that time. The sheep was named Dolly.

The press announced her birth only seven months later - February 22, 1997. Subsequently, four more sheep were cloned at the institute, which confirmed the effectiveness of the technology of transferring a cell nucleus with genetic information into a donor germ cell, from which the embryo develops. Dolly lived for six and a half years, gave birth to six lambs, and died of progressive lung disease.

The experiment, which many compared to the splitting of an atom, subsequently came under serious criticism. IN scientific publications materials have appeared indicating that genetic information The donor was in fact not completely removed from the resulting egg and Dolly turned out to be a carrier of the genes of two animals. And this is not a clone at all.

Cloning problems

So, theoretically, you can try to clone a person. But the question arises - why? Moreover, as we have already noted, exact tracing paper will not work. And to the possibility of copying consciousness modern science didn't even come close. Therefore, no matter how hard you try, it will not be possible to reproduce Pushkin, Tolstoy, Einstein or Marilyn Monroe.

In the minds of some science fiction writers and futurologists from medicine, the idea of ​​clones - sources of donor organs - arose in this regard. But this idea immediately ran into a storm of criticism. It turned out to be unacceptable for society from religious, ethical, social, moral, and legal positions. As a result, possible human reproductive cloning has been banned in many countries around the world.

Moreover, the process is being criminalized. The criminal codes of these countries include articles punishing attempts to create a human copy. But there is also"therapeutic cloning" . Its essence is that it is possible to interrupt the development of the embryo obtained as a result of cloning in the first 14 days and use it to obtain stem cells. A similar procedure is allowed in the USA, Great Britain and some other countries. Moreover, the techniques used in therapeutic cloning are widely used in the study of diseases transmitted at the genetic level. Yes, according to - Shukhrata Mitalipova famous biologist , currently working in the USA on the problems of genetic diseases - the ban on manipulations with embryos, nuclei of germ and somatic cells seriously complicates such work. Mitalipov’s laboratory was the first in the world to create technology editing the genome of a human embryo with cardiomyopathy. Scientist

hopes that in 10-15 years the understanding of the need for such research will lead to serious positive progress and will save scientists working with human embryos from far-fetched criticism.

What about in Russia?

Photo: Sadikov Ramil/RIA Novosti The Russian Federation has not formally acceded to the Protocol to Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Human Dignity. But human cloning is temporarily prohibited

Federal Law No. 54-FZ of May 20, 2002 “On a temporary ban on human cloning.”

Initially, the ban was limited to five years. But then the text of the law was amended to extend it indefinitely. However, the law prohibits reproductive cloning and does not apply to therapeutic cloning. Today in Russia there is no scientific centers , capable of working on the problems of transplantation of cell nuclei at a level comparable to the world one. And here we seriously lag not only behind the USA and Great Britain - world leaders. IN last years great resources

China began to focus on research in this direction.

And still Famous British biologist, laureate Nobel Prize, whose work on clawed frog cloning in the late 50s and early 60s XX centuries formed the basis modern methods transplantation of cell nuclei, believes that in the next 50 years humanity will still witness human cloning. “Even the technique of artificial insemination was treated with extreme suspicion when it was first created. But after the birth of Louise Brown, the first “test tube baby,” in 1978, society was able to accept the technology,” the scientist believes. Time will tell if he is right. So far, neither the scientific community nor the press have information about successful cloning attempts.

Sergey Anisimov

Since the famous sheep Dolly, who was born without the participation of a male, was revealed to the world, interest in cloning has not waned even among people who are very far from biological science. And, of course, the most main question: “Is it possible to clone a person?” Moreover, every now and then a sensational headline will pop up somewhere: “British (American, Japanese, Chinese - insert as appropriate) scientists have successfully cloned a person!” True, these headlines do not appear in scientific almanacs or on the websites of research institutes and academies - but what kind of self-respecting layman reads serious scientific publications!

But seriously... it's theoretically possible. Why do we say "theoretically"? Yes, because there has not been a single experiment yet, and one can only talk theoretically. Scientists are in no hurry to begin practice, and there are reasons for this... and here we will briefly digress from objective reality and turn to science fiction.

In one of the episodes of the science fiction series Star trek: Next generation, the crew of the starship Enterprise meets mysterious planet, where the descendants of the crew of another ship that once crashed live. The heroes are surprised that among the residents there are a lot of people who look the same, and soon these people put forward a strange demand: to hand over all the children who are on board the Enterprise.

It turns out that these people reproduced by cloning for many generations (after all, it was impossible to create a large population from a few surviving crew members naturally) - that’s why there are so many people similar to each other among them, and most importantly, the accumulation of genetic errors during the cloning process led to , that the last generation cannot be reproduced even in this way! That’s why they needed other people’s children...

Science fiction does not always live up to its epithet, but in this case the writers' idea turned out to be extremely close to reality. The same sheep Dolly was shown to the general public because this experiment was successful, but how many were unsuccessful? Hundreds! Intrauterine fetal death, death soon after birth, swelling, placental abnormalities, immune deficiency - this is only a small part of the list of violations that scientists encountered in animal cloning experiments. Animals were often born with serious defects of the heart and other vital organs, and this was due to those same genetic errors. Consequently, no one guarantees that when cloning a person, for every healthy person there will not be several hundred disabled people - much more than during natural reproduction. What to do with the result of a failed experiment? This is not a sheep that you can just pick up and kill - this is a person, his murder will be a criminal offense... or will it not be? Maybe a cloned person will not be considered a full-fledged individual with all civil rights? This humanity has already “passed through” in ancient times, without any cloning - and no one wants to return to this...

The question of human cloning can be posed somewhat differently: for what? The possibility of cloning great apes can be studied without any special ethical problems on the animal closest to humans - chimpanzees. Studying psychological differences in genetically identical people? This has been and continues to be studied remarkably well in twins. What practical value can human cloning have?

Those who judge cloning based on science fiction films like “The Sixth Day” usually imagine the matter this way: now we are cloning A.S. Pushkin - and he will immediately begin to write masterpieces for us. In reality, everything happens somewhat differently: the clone does not come out of the autoclave as an adult and “ready-to-eat” individual - it is an embryo that differs from the usual one only in that it is an exact genetic copy of the maternal one (precisely genetic - other factors that scientists also influence intrauterine development are called epigenetic, so a clone will not be an exact copy even in the physical sense). Then this embryo is implanted into the uterus (and not put into a device - there are no such devices and are not expected in the foreseeable future), where it develops as an embryo of its species should develop, then it is born, grows, develops... and if it is a person, then he still has to be educated and trained. A clone of A.S. Pushkin, even if we create it, will not listen to Arina Rodionovna’s fairy tales, will not study at Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum... but there will be a lot of things that will not happen in his childhood that made the “original” a great poet.

Perhaps, main argument against the cloning of geniuses lies precisely in the fact that the people who will raise these children will initially consider their pupils to be geniuses... such an “experiment” is often carried out by some irresponsible parents, only they grow up not to be great writers, scientists and musicians, but ordinary hysterics and neurasthenics.

The idea of ​​“conveyor production” of ideal soldiers seems equally dubious - after all, such an “army of the future” will first require an “army” of surrogate mothers... and military power states in modern world is determined not so much by soldiers’ muscles as by the presence of high-tech weapons - and it makes much more sense to throw state resources at this “front” if we want to strengthen the army.

The hope that cloning will make a person immortal makes no sense at all: even if we managed to copy and download the entire life experience original (as the heroes of the film “The Sixth Day” do - in reality, such technology does not exist and is not expected), the original would still not be able to incarnate into it and say: “Here, this is me - young again.” The maximum he can do is look at his clone and think: “This is how I was when I was young.” An egoist who is concerned about preserving “his beloved self” (and other people, as a rule, do not think about immortality) is clearly not satisfied with this option.

I can’t help but remember the statement of one citizen who hid behind his nickname and avatar in social network(it’s doubtful that he would say something like that to someone’s face): with the help of cloning, beautiful women can be replicated and distributed to men, and all other women should be destroyed... what can I say? This citizen definitely does not consider women as people. But this expresses the main problem of human cloning: in order to do this, we will have to stop considering a person to be a person.

So, the question about the possibility of human cloning can be answered this way: it is theoretically possible, but no one will do this, at least for lack of practical sense. The idea of ​​cloning individual organs and tissues for transplantation seems to be much more relevant (and not so acute from an ethical point of view) ... but its practical implementation is still far away.

PostScience debunks scientific myths and explains common misconceptions. We asked our experts to comment on popular beliefs about reproductive cloning.

A clone is an exact copy of the original

This is more of an inaccuracy

There are several uses of the term “clone”: as a designation for the offspring of a single cell (common slang in scientific circles) or as a designation for an organism that has an identical genome to the original (like Dolly the sheep, obtained by transferring the nucleus of a somatic cell of the “original” into a donor egg). The problem is that in both cases the genomes of the original and the clone will not be identical due to the accumulation of random mutations. For example, the cells of our body may differ from each other in the set of mutations acquired during the process of division, although we should be a clone of that very first cell of the embryo. It's the same story with identical twins, who are actually clones of each other, but nevertheless differ in a set of mutations.

If this is not enough to believe that the clone is not identical to the original, one can move from observing changes in DNA to epigenetic ones. At the level epigenetic changes All our cells are different, the cells of twins are even more different, and even a colony of cells (derivatives of the same cell) growing under the same conditions in a Petri dish will also contain cells that are slightly different from each other epigenetically. Thus, a clone is a perfect repetition of the original in a world where replication errors and epigenetics do not exist, but in real world This is just an attempt to recreate the original.

Cloning a mammoth is impossible

Theoretically it's possible

Theoretically, cloning a mammoth is possible, and there is a non-zero probability that there will actually be a cell in which the mammoth DNA will be intact and therefore can be used for cloning. There is also a non-zero probability that after some time scientists will be able to synthesize a complete, intact mammoth genome. That is, it is theoretically possible, but it is unlikely that such manipulations can happen in the near future using cloning technologies, since in order to find a fossil mammoth cell that will contain a whole set of DNA, it is necessary to sort through and analyze approximately 1014 cells. And it’s hard for me to say how long it would take to artificially synthesize full-length DNA, but to date, about 106 nucleotides have been synthesized in Craig Venter’s laboratory. And we will need to synthesize approximately 109 nucleotides, that is, in order to achieve such a technical level of synthesis, it will probably take at least another ten or two years. Therefore, cloning a mammoth is theoretically possible, but it is unlikely that it will happen within the lifetime of the current generation.

Sergey Kiselev

Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Epigenetics, Institute of General Genetics. N. I. Vavilova RAS

Cloned animals have no parents

It all depends on who we consider parents

Each person is the product of the combination of an equal number of genes from his parents, which are found in the DNA of the father's sperm and the mother's egg. After fertilization, every gene (or rather, almost every gene, because there are also genes for sex chromosomes and mitochondria) is present in two copies. Genes “work”, or, as scientists say, are expressed, and as a result of sequential switching on and off of certain genes, a full-fledged organism develops. In mammals, the egg is fertilized in the mother's womb, where it develops into a fetus.

In cloned animals, everything happens a little differently. The very first and most famous clone was, of course, Dolly the sheep. She had neither a father nor a mother in the usual sense. In order for Dolly to be born, scientists took an unfertilized egg from one sheep and mechanically extracted from it the nucleus, which contained the mother's genetic information. Further into such an enucleated ( nucleus- this is a “nucleus”) the egg was injected with a nucleus taken from the udder cell of another sheep. The result was an egg with a double set of genes - not because half the genes belonged to the father and half to the mother, but because the udder cell of the sheep from which the nucleus was taken contained a double set of genes.

The last stage of the cloning process is identical to the gestation of fertilized eggs by a surrogate mother. The resulting egg with a double set of genes was planted in the womb of a third ewe, which carried the fetus - the future Dolly. As a result, Dolly can have a different number of parents depending on who you consider to be the parents. From a genetic point of view, Dolly is, of course, a clone of the animal from whose udder cell the nucleus was taken. Therefore, its genetic mom and dad are the parents of this donor sheep. The surrogate mother is the ewe that carried Dolly. And she received the mitochondrial genes from a third animal - the sheep from which the egg was taken, she is Dolly's mitochondrial mother.

Konstantin Severinov

Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (SkolTech), Professor of Rutgers University (USA), Head of the Laboratory of Molecular, Environmental and Applied Microbiology of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University

Human cloning is ethically unacceptable

Is it true

The goals of reproductive cloning may vary. The first ethically unjustified goal is the reconstruction of a complete genetic copy of the body as a set of spare parts for a specific person, for example, with the aim of using the possibilities of transplantation as a way to combat aging, diseases, and loss of organ function. If we grow a whole organism by treating it as a collection of spare parts, we violate the key ethical dogma that we should not treat a person as a means, but only as an end. Any object that is alive, even if artificially reproduced, must be considered a target. This cloning situation violates key ethical standards.

If we are talking about reproductive cloning not only for the sake of growing an organism, but for the sake of recreating the completeness of the biological and social, then this is impossible, because all genetic programs are implemented only in the environment. The main behavioral characteristics are quantitative, that is, their specific behavior depends not only on the reaction norm inherent in the genotype, but also on the influence of society (intelligence, cognitive abilities, propensity for criminal behavior). Even if we repeat the reaction norm of the genotype, we will never create social conditions that allow us to achieve a similar manifestation of the trait. Society is very dynamic, and we cannot repeat its conditions that affected a specific person. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the selectivity of the reaction to individual factors. A person is influenced not only by purposefully created conditions, but also by non-purposeful influence factors: the environment, the media and other agents of socialization. Therefore, neither the target setting nor the mechanisms for implementing the idea of ​​reproductive cloning are ethically and scientifically justified.

Human cloning now it is very close to reality. Unfortunately, the cloning debate has been influenced by misleading media reports from the very beginning.

Negative attitude towards human cloning- more a consequence of the breathtaking novelty of cloning than of any real undesirable consequences. With reasonable regulation, the benefits of human cloning would greatly outweigh the disadvantages. If the public were to completely ban human cloning, it would be a sad episode in human history. This essay discusses both the benefits and perceived negative consequences of human cloning.

In reality, a clone is simply an identical twin of another person, delayed in time. Human clones will be ordinary human beings, just like you or me, not zombies at all. They will be carried by an ordinary woman for 9 months, they will be born and raised in a family like any other child. They will need 18 years to reach adulthood, just like everyone else.

Hence, clone The -twin will be several decades younger than its original, so there is no danger of people confusing the twin clone with the original. Just like identical twins, the clone and the DNA donor will have different fingerprints.

The clone will not inherit any of the original individual's memories. Because of all these differences, a clone is not a photocopy or double of a person, but simply a younger identical twin. Human clones will have the same legal rights and responsibilities as any other person. Clones will be human beings at their most in every sense. You will not have the right to keep a clone as a slave. Human slavery was banned in the United States in 1865.

It should be emphasized that human cloning should be carried out on an individual voluntary basis. A living person who is planned to be cloned will have to give his consent. Likewise, a woman who will carry a twin clone and then raise this child must act voluntarily. No other scenario is conceivable for a free democratic country. Since cloning requires a woman to bear the child, there is no danger of evil scientists creating thousands of clones in secret laboratories. Cloning will only be done at the request and with the participation of ordinary people as an additional alternative for reproduction.

Many people ask: Why clone a person?

There are at least two good reasons: to provide an opportunity for families to conceive twin children of prominent individuals, and to enable childless couples to have children.

Living in a free society, we must also ask, “Are negative consequences so inevitable that we should prohibit voluntary adults from doing so?” We will see that in general the negative consequences are not so insurmountable. Where certain abuses are anticipated, they can be prevented through targeted laws and regulations, as discussed below.

Cultural and economic significance cloning Clint Eastwood would be huge!

Cloning of exceptional individuals

Outstanding people are valuable in many ways, both cultural and financial. For example, in the US, movie stars and sports stars are often worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Let's look at the specific example of Clint Eastwood. His films have brought in several billion dollars over 30 years. Today he is 67 years old and nearing the end of his acting and directing career. He is one of the most popular living movie stars. As Richard Schickel said in his essay on Eastwood, “For actors, more than for anyone else, genetics is destiny.” The cultural and economic implications of cloning Clint Eastwood would be enormous. Tens of millions of fans would be delighted. Moreover, it could be done in a very appropriate manner. He undoubtedly has the financial resources to pay for this procedure. His new wife is now of childbearing age and could easily bear and give birth to a child who would be raised in their family. If the Eastwood family decided they wanted to do it, why would the government ban it? Why should this be a crime?

The same reasoning applies to sports stars. For example, they proposed cloning Michael Jordan, a super basketball player. Of course, this should only be done with the approval of Mr. Jordan and the woman, preferably married, who wishes to raise this child. Millions of basketball fans would rejoice at the news of the successful cloning of Michael Jordan. There would also be widespread interest and many incentives to clone other major figures in the sport, such as Wilt Chamberlain, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, the last major league baseball player with a .400+ batting average. Of course, we'll have to wait about 20 years for the twins of these sporting greats to come of age. In addition, there is always a possibility that the athlete’s twin may not be interested in sports. However, with the opportunities before them to earn millions of dollars, this does not seem too likely.

Why shouldn't you also allow cloning prominent intellectuals and scientists such as science fiction visionary Arthur C. Clarke, Dr. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, and even Dr. Jan Wilmut himself?

Wilmut will definitely receive the Nobel Prize in the medicine/physiology category. Indeed, it would be worth cloning each of Nobel laureates for the future contributions their twins could potentially make to science.

Again, we are talking about a decision that is made by the individuals directly involved: the DNA donor, the woman who will carry the child, and her husband who will help raise that child.

Cloning is reasonable even for mere mortals. The concept of exceptional people is not limited to movie stars and Nobel Prize winners. We all know people whom we respect and admire. Sometimes we say to ourselves, If only there were more people like this in the world!

Human cloning allows us to go beyond this kind of idle speculation. Suppose old Uncle Max - wonderful person, who is treated with love and respect in society and in the family. His niece and her husband decide that they would like to have a child just like Uncle Max. He was flattered and agreed allow yourself to be cloned. Why should the US Congress, in its infinite wisdom, step in and declare Uncle Max and his niece criminals who should be arrested by the reproductive police and put in prison? Where are the harmful consequences for themselves and for society? Why should this be a crime?

What can we expect from human clones? The answer comes from a study of ordinary identical twins. In appearance, the clone almost completely replicates the original individual and has almost the same height and build. For famous supermodels and movie stars, this may be the most important qualities. Identical twins have a 70 percent correlation in intelligence and a 50 percent correlation in personality traits. This means that if a brilliant scientist is cloned, his twin clone may actually be even smarter than the original scientist! And if Elizabeth Taylor's clone has a slightly different character, does it really matter? At present, we cannot say with certainty what percentage of twins of outstanding people will make equal contributions to science. However, if cloning is banned, we will never know. Decisiveness and energy are undoubtedly important characteristics many outstanding people. And they seem to be heavily influenced by genetics. If it turns out that clones of prominent people do not live up to the reputation of their predecessors, then the incentive to clone people will weaken. Then we will see that people, being informed, will want to clone less frequently.

Objections raised against human cloning

Some politicians in the United States are now proposing to save us from all the misfortunes associated with human cloning by completely banning it by law. Interestingly, upon closer inspection, no serious problems actually exist. In the few cases where abuse is possible, it can be prevented through targeted legislation. And there is nothing about human cloning per se that justifies its criminalization. The only objection that remains as a result of the analysis is that cloning technology is not yet perfect. But this is a justification for further research, not a ban.

The only objection that remains as a result of the analysis is that cloning technology is not yet perfect. But this is a justification for further research, not a ban.

Number of fantastic and absurd objections against human cloning simply amazing. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of this concept among the general public. Instead of pandering to fears arising from ignorance, politicians should undertake a program to create a sober understanding of the issue among the public.

If US legislators are foolish enough to make human cloning a crime, there is a good chance the Supreme Court will declare it unconstitutional. Even if he does not do this, Americans will still have the opportunity to fly to a free country to perform this procedure.

Let's look in detail at some of the main objections that people have to human cloning. The very thought of this is unnatural and disgusting.

Creating another person with the same genetic code would violate human dignity and uniqueness.

These arguments are undermined by the existence of 150 million people in the world today whose genetic code is not unique. I'm talking about natural identical twins, which occur on average once every 67 births.

Natural twins are much more alike than clone twins, as natural twins are exactly the same age, while the clone twin and the DNA donor will usually have an age difference of several decades. Are natural twins or triplets ugly? Do twins violate human dignity? Of course not.

This backlash in many cases is simply the result of misinformation and confusion surrounding the concept of a human clone. But if you find cloning disgusting, then by all means don't do it! Even if many people still find the idea of ​​human cloning disgusting, this is not a sufficient reason for a ban.

In the name of individual freedom, many activities that people find abhorrent are allowed in this world. For example, many people consider nose rings and gender reassignment surgery disgusting. But they are not prohibited, as we value freedom of choice. There is a view that crimes without a victim should not be considered crimes. Who would be the victim in the event of human cloning? It's hard to believe that clones would consider themselves victims just because they have the same genetic code as someone else. After all, millions of identical twins do not consider themselves victims. It is also difficult to see how society as a whole could be harmed by human cloning. On the contrary, a clone should probably think of himself as someone special, and even more so if he is the twin of an outstanding person. They will also have the advantage of knowing from the very beginning of life what they are capable of. So where's the problem? Cloning would reduce genetic diversity, making us more vulnerable to epidemics and the like.

This objection is based on an unwarranted extreme extrapolation. There are more than 5 billion people on this planet. Obviously, human cloning will be done on a very modest scale due to the expected cost of the procedure. In addition, most women still will not want to be mothers of twin clones. It will be many decades before the total number of human clones reaches at least 1 million people worldwide. As a percentage, this would constitute a microscopic portion of the total population and would have no effect on human genetic diversity. We will also discuss further how human cloning will help us replenish lost genetic diversity. If in some distant future human cloning will become widespread, then some restrictions on such activities might be justified. However, let's keep in mind that even if one clone of every person on the planet were created, there would be virtually no decrease in genetic diversity, since we would still have 5 billion genetically different individuals left. This could lead to the creation of human monsters or freaks .

Human cloning is not the same as human genetic engineering. In cloning, DNA is copied, resulting in another person who is an exact twin of the existing individual and therefore not a monster or freak. Genetic engineering would imply modification human DNA, as a result of which a person may appear unlike any other who previously existed. This could conceivably lead to the creation of very unusual people, even monsters. Human genetic engineering, while having great positive potential, is indeed a very risky undertaking, and should only be carried out with the greatest caution and supervision. Cloning is safe and trivial compared to genetic engineering. If you are afraid of human cloning, then human genetic engineering should simply terrify you. Dictators can use cloning for evil.

There is a possibility that unscrupulous dictators such as Fidel Castro or Saddam Hussein may try to perpetuate their power by creating a clone of themselves and transferring power to him when they die. There is also the possibility that such people may try to create a super-army of thousands of clones of Arnold Schwarzenegger or the like. These possibilities cannot be discounted. However, it is important to understand that the laws passed in the United States and other democratic countries cannot control the behavior of rogue dictators in totalitarian countries. A ban on human cloning in the US or Europe will not stop cloning in Iraq. And if Saddam Hussein wants to clone himself, no military intervention can stop him. The evil in these scenarios comes not from cloning per se, but from dictatorships. The appropriate solution would be a worldwide ban on dictators, but this is, of course, unlikely to come true. The technology is not perfect, it can lead to fetal death.

Not a single area human activity not free from accidental death. Human cloning is no exception. Some of the remaining lambs cloned in Roslyn were stillborn. Currently, mammalian cloning technology is in an experimental stage and the success rate is still low. Based on additional experiments on higher mammals, it can be foreseen that the cloning procedure will be improved to the point where the risk of miscarriage or death of the child will be the same as for other births.

Thirty thousand people died on the Oregon Trail. Forty thousand die in the United States every year in car accidents. There are also many fatal plane crashes, with hundreds of people and dozens of children dying in each accident. Every year, many adults and children choke on chicken bones and die. However, we don't think about banning cars, planes, or fried chicken because the benefits outweigh the risks. If airplanes were invented now instead of 90 years ago, I'm afraid there would be serious proposals to ban airplanes due to the risk of injury and loss of life. It would be absurd to ban new technological advances simply because they are not perfectly safe to begin with. Millionaires will clone yourself only to obtain organs for transplantation.

This is one of the most absurd of all cloning claims. A human clone is a human being. In a free society, you cannot force another human being to give you one of their internal organs. Also, you cannot in any way kill another person to obtain one of their organs. Already existing laws prevent such abuses. Note also that if your twin clone is injured in an accident, you may be asked to donate one of your kidneys to keep the clone alive! If the organ donor is still a child, society may want to intervene and declare that it is prohibited. In reality, removing any organ from a child, whether cloned or not, for transplantation into another person is a highly controversial practice that should be strictly regulated.

Many legitimate future applications cloning technology find themselves in the areas of organ transplantation, skin grafts for fire victims, etc. In these cases, cloning an entire person would not be required, but only the use of the same cell nuclear transfer technology to grow new tissues or organs for medical purposes.

Do we really need 200 clones of Sophia Loren or Cindia Crawford?

Perhaps not, and it is unlikely that this will happen. (However, the idea of ​​reproducing beautiful women would not seem so bad to most men.) If we are talking about cloning a living person and his consent is required, as the law must be, extremely It is unlikely that a person would agree to create 200 clones. A person would probably favor making no more than 1 or 2 clones of themselves. Also remember that human clones cannot be mass produced in a laboratory. Each of them must be carried to term by a woman, just like any other child. How do critics of cloning imagine that 200 women can be persuaded to carry 200 identical babies? If we are really worried that this is possible, society could simply ban the creation of more than 2 clones of one individual, rather than cloning in general.

If we're talking about cloning someone who is now dead, a more distant possibility, then it's a matter of limitation number of twin clones becomes a reasonable topic for thought and debate. And we will have a lot of time for these debates. Of course, if there are simply several individuals with the same appearance, such as triplets or quadruplets, this does not necessarily lead to degradation human essence these people.

Religious leaders discredit themselves when they propose to imprison people they cannot convince.

This is equivalent to taking on the role of God.

The Bible and the sacred texts of other major religions do not explicitly prohibit human cloning. Therefore, religious opposition to human cloning has no solid basis. However, there are many people who think human cloning is “wrong” for religious reasons. These people, of course, should not participate in cloning. Religious leaders who believe that human cloning is “wrong” are given the right to preach their faith and persuade anyone they can convince. But they discredit themselves when they propose to imprison people they cannot convince. Jesus never advocated power to force people to live according to Christian beliefs. Imposing religious beliefs through laws is a very pathetic idea, and not only that, it violates the US Constitution.

Unlike abortion, which involves ending the life of the fetus, cloning involves creating a new life. Therefore, opposition to human cloning is not based on established moral principles. It can also be argued that if God didn't want us to clone mammals and humans, he wouldn't have created Dr. Wilmut. Please stay true to your views and faith, but don't tell me what to do with my DNA! Personally, I would not want to clone myself, but free people should be free in their choice and not forced by society.

The charge of playing God is a vague but recurring criticism. We hear it every time a new serious achievement appears in medicine. At one time, birth control through contraception, in vitro fertilization, and heart transplants were criticized on the same grounds. God often does wonderful things that we should try to replicate. If playing God in human cloning can have bad consequences, critics have a responsibility to determine exactly what bad consequences those might have. So far they haven't done that.

Desirable government regulation

Human cloning is a new and unexplored legal field that will definitely require some legislative regulation to prevent abuse. Here are some suggestions as to what moderate laws might be considered desirable.

Human clones should officially have the same legal rights and responsibilities as any other human being. People would have no right to keep a human clone in a bodega for spare parts for their body any more than they would with identical twins. The mistreatment of any human being is a crime, regardless of whether their genetic code is unique.

A person currently living should not clone without his written consent. Any person is automatically given ownership of his genetic code and the right to dispose of it at his own discretion; the code must remain under his control. A person should be allowed to determine of his own free will whether and under what conditions he wants to allow himself to be cloned after death. We may want to prohibit the cloning of minors because... they have not yet reached the maturity to make this kind of decision.

Human clones must be carried and born only by an adult woman acting of her own free will, without coercion. Growing a human fetus outside a woman's body, for example in laboratory apparatus, should be prohibited. At the moment, there is no technology for artificially growing the fetus, but Japanese researchers are working on it.

There is reason to believe that the predisposition to cruelty and murder is genetically determined. Cloning of convicted murderers and other violent criminals should be prohibited. Cloning Charles Manson should not be legal. There are enough criminals in the world without artificially creating them. The ban should certainly apply to famous mass murderers of the past such as Hitler, Lenin and Stalin, anticipating the day when this will be possible.

Cloning the dead

Interesting, but little known fact about Dr. Wilmut's cloning procedure, that it is done with frozen, not fresh, cells. (This information was obtained directly from Ian Wilmut by Dr. Patrick Dixon.) This means that the DNA donor, whether animal or human, does not need to be alive when cloning is done. If a human tissue sample is frozen properly, a person could be cloned through long time after his death. In the case of people who have already died and whose tissue has not been frozen, cloning becomes more difficult, and current technology does not allow it. However, it would be very bold for any biologist to say that this is impossible. Let's now look to the near future and think about the possibilities that will open up if science can develop a method for producing a clone from the DNA of an already deceased creature.

All human tissue contains DNA and can potentially be a source for cloning. The list of tissues includes human hair, bones and teeth. Unfortunately, DNA begins to slowly degrade several weeks after death, destroying segments of the genetic code. After 60 million years, only short fragments of dinosaur DNA remain, so the chances of Jurassic Park being realized are slim. However, there is a good chance of recovering the DNA sequence from human tissue samples because Much less time has passed.

Think of the genetic code as a book from which paragraphs or pages are randomly deleted over time. If we only have one copy of a book, full text cannot be restored. Luckily we have more than one copy. A bone or tissue sample may contain many thousands of cells, each with its own copy of the DNA code.

It is like owning thousands of copies of the same book. If page 239 is removed from one book, that page may appear intact in another, so by combining information from many cells, it is possible to reconstruct exactly the original genetic code. Another encouraging factor is that only a small percentage of the three billion characters of the human genetic code are responsible for individual differences.

For example, genetic codes Chimpanzees and humans are actually 99% the same. This means that less than 1% of the code will have to be restored, i.e. only the part that determines individual differences between people. Of course, all this is beyond the limits of today's technology, but it is fundamentally feasible.

Bunches of hair from many have been preserved famous people of the past. The list of these people includes Isaac Newton, George Washington, Napoleon, Beethoven, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and John Lennon. For example, not long ago a chemical analysis of several hairs of Isaac Newton was carried out. It was discovered that due to his chemical experiments they contained arsenic in high concentrations.

Until now, locks of hair were simply extravagant rarities. With human cloning now on the verge of reality, they are now becoming much more important. It is possible that great people of the past could be cloned from samples of their hair, tissue or bones. Albert Einstein's brain is preserved in a special vessel. We know the location of the bones of many other famous people, such as Abraham Lincoln, Leonardo da Vinci, Eva Peron. We should take appropriate measures, legislative if necessary, to ensure that samples of the tissues of eminent people of the past are properly preserved from destruction. Cryogenic storage of these samples would be desirable to prevent further DNA degradation.

The prospect of cloning outstanding people from the past is an extremely exciting possibility, and justifies the most intensive research efforts. Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are two of the greatest scientists of all time. Imagine the potential for scientific progress if these two scientists could be cloned and trained in the 21st century!

Given the dependence of the individual on the cultural environment, the Newton clone would have been raised in England, and the Einstein clone would have been raised, no doubt, in a Jewish family, perhaps real descendants of Einstein. Just like with clones of movie stars and athletes, there is no guarantee that their twins will necessarily want to study physics. Instead, in their new life they may find some other field of science more interesting, such as artificial intelligence or genetic engineering. Assuming they were born around the same time, it would be possible for twin clones of Newton and Einstein to collaborate in scientific work! What scientific wonders could these two great minds work together to discover?

One can also imagine that the great political leaders of the past could be cloned from a tuft of hair or from leftover bones. Names that come to mind are Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy. There is some evidence that leadership tendencies are determined genetically. Of course, a person's life experiences leave a big imprint on his personality, interests and aspirations. However, it does not seem improbable that some of the twins of these great men might also wish to enter the path of politics and reach its heights, just as the children of politicians sometimes repeat the careers of their fathers. How incredibly exciting it would be to witness a presidential race in the next century between the twin of Abraham Lincoln and the twin of Franklin Roosevelt without paralysis! Who would win a rivalry between twin clones John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan? Will Winston Churchill be chosen as British Prime Minister again, or will he find himself out of work in the supposedly peaceful environment of the 21st century? Maybe he would have become a prominent television commentator and writer instead.

There would also be enormous interest and benefit from cloning great sports figures of the past such as Jim Thorpe, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Gees Ownes. Olympic Games 2032 could be a sensation if clones of Jim Thorpe and Gees Ownes were to compete against each other.

The same technology that would clone Adolf Hitler can be used to clone Anne Frank!

Another opportunity that comes with human cloning, may involve partially correcting the injustices of the past. Possibly many millions of Nazi victims concentration camps could be cloned to restore lost genetic branches. The same technology that would clone Adolf Hitler can be used to clone Anne Frank! Human cloning would be the first proposal to the world Jewish community as a constructive response to the Holocaust. There remains serious concern in Russia about the impoverishment of the gene pool caused by Stalin's mass executions of society's best and brightest. In a limited sense, cloning could offer a chance new life people of the past whose lives were unjustly and prematurely ended.

What about DNA from Egyptian mummies? Perhaps the ancient Egyptians were wiser than we might think in preserving their bodies after death. The complete mummy of Ramses II lies in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in excellent condition. Ramses II is a pharaoh mentioned in Old Testament. Human cloning technology would allow a modern Egyptian woman to give birth to the twin of a great historical figure. Who wouldn't be awed by the opportunity to see the living embodiment of Ramses II and hear the same voice that spoke to Moses more than three thousand years ago?

Let's sum it up

It is clear that human cloning has enormous potential benefits and several possible negative consequences. As with many scientific achievements of the past, such as airplanes and computers, the only threat is the threat to our own narrow mental self-satisfaction. Human clones can make great contributions to the fields of scientific progress and cultural development. In certain cases where potential abuses are foreseen, they can be prevented through targeted, specialized legislation. With a drop common sense and reasonable regulation, human cloning is not something to be feared. We should look forward to it with excited impatience and support Scientific research, which will speed up cloning.

Exceptional people are among the world's greatest treasures. Human cloning will allow us to preserve and, over time, even restore these treasures.