Emotional reactions to human reproductive cloning.

BACKGROUND: Extant surveys of people's attitudes towards human reproductive cloning focus on moral judgements alone, not emotional reactions or sentiments. This is especially important given that some (especially Leon Kass) have argued against such cloning on the ground that it engenders widespread negative emotions, like disgust, that provide a moral guide. OBJECTIVE: To provide some data on emotional reactions to human cloning, with a focus on repugnance, given its prominence in the literature. METHODS: This brief mixed-method study measures the self-reported attitudes and emotions (positive or negative) towards cloning from a sample of participants in the USA. RESULTS: Most participants condemned cloning as immoral and said it should be illegal. The most commonly reported positive sentiment was by far interest/curiosity. Negative emotions were much more varied, but anxiety was the most common. Only about a third of participants selected disgust or repugnance as something they felt, and an even smaller portion had this emotion come to mind prior to seeing a list of options. CONCLUSIONS: Participants felt primarily interested and anxious about human reproductive cloning. They did not primarily feel disgust or repugnance. This provides initial empirical evidence that such a reaction is not appropriately widespread.

Speech acts and performances of scientific citizenship: Examining how scientists talk about therapeutic cloning.

Scientists play an important role in framing public engagement with science. Their language can facilitate or impede particular interactions taking place with particular citizens: scientists' "speech acts" can "perform" different types of "scientific citizenship". This paper examines how scientists in Australia talked about therapeutic cloning during interviews and during the 2006 parliamentary debates on stem cell research. Some avoided complex labels, thereby facilitating public examination of this field. Others drew on language that only opens a space for publics to become educated, not to participate in a more meaningful way. Importantly, public utterances made by scientists here contrast with common international utterances: they did not focus on the therapeutic but the research promises of therapeutic cloning. Social scientists need to pay attention to the performative aspects of language in order to promote genuine citizen involvement in techno-science. Speech Act Theory is a useful analytical tool for this.

U.S. consumers attitudes toward farm animal cloning.

In January 2008, the United States Food and Drug Administration concluded "meat and milk from cattle, swine, and goat clones or their offspring are as safe to eat as food we eat from those species now" (U.S. FDA, 2010). However, cloning remains a very controversial topic. A web-based survey administered by Knowledge Networks was used to determine U.S. consumers' awareness of and attitudes toward meat and milk from cloned cattle. Findings reveal consumers do not differentiate much between products from cloned animals and products from non-cloned animals. Overall consumers are concerned that animal cloning is an unnatural process and that it will lead to human cloning.

Consumers' attitudes toward consumption of cloned beef. The impact of exposure to technological information about animal cloning.

Novel food technologies, such as cloning, have been introduced into the meat production sector; however, their use is not widely supported by many consumers. This study was designed to assess whether Japanese consumers' attitudes toward consumption of cloned beef (specifically, beef derived from bovine embryo and somatic cell-cloned cattle) would change after they were provided with technological information on animal cloning through a web-based survey. The results revealed that most respondents did not discriminate between their attitudes toward the consumption of the two types of cloned beef, and that most respondents did not change their attitudes toward cloned beef after receiving the technological information. The respondents' individual characteristics, including their knowledge about the food safety of cloned beef and their basic knowledge about animal cloning, influenced the likelihood of a change in their attitudes after they received the information. In conclusion, some consumers might become less uncomfortable about the consumption of cloned beef by the straightforward provision of technological information about animal cloning; however, most consumers are likely to maintain their attitudes.

Attitudes of social science students in Israel and Austria towards the belated twins scenario--an exploratory study.

This article discusses results of a questionnaire survey of 156 university students in Israel and Austria examining reactions towards the Belated Twins scenario, which entails the artificial twinning of embryos of which one is immediately carried to term while the other one is born later. The scenario resembles a case of human reproductive cloning in terms of result (the creation of genetically identical individuals in a time-delayed manner) but it involves gamete fusion like "natural" reproduction. By means of qualitative text analysis we discuss the core themes mobilized both in support and opposition to the scenario. While Israeli and Austrian respondents held similar general attitudes (about half were in favour of legalizing Belated Twins, while about a third opposed it), they drew partly on different arguments to arrive at their conclusions. In both groups, uncertainty stemming from "novel" elements in the scenario was regularly interpreted as negatively exacerbating existing issues.

[The two (and more) cultures of the "clone". Utopia and fiction in post-war discourses of life sciences]. / Die zwei (und mehr) Kulturen des "Klons". Utopie und Fiktion im biowissenschaftlichen Diskurs der Nachkriegszeit.

Since the late 1950s, "two cultures" has become a catch phrase for describing a deep divide between science and literature. When Charles P. Snow, who initiated this discussion, introduced the notion of "two cultures" in a lecture at the University in Cambridge in 1959, he referred to an incompatibility of scientific and literary worldviews in Western Societies. His thesis of two contradicting cultures immediately received a huge variety of different responses from philosophers, scientists, novelists and literary scholars. However, this article argues that this widespread debate was part of a broader post-war discourse on the impact of modern science on society, in which especially the idea of "scientific progress" was at stake. Central to this debate was the question of how scientific and technological progress could affect the notion of the "human" itself. The paper analyses the emerging discourse on cloning against this background. The constitutive role of fiction and imagination in both fields, science and literature, is explored by tracing the scientific, utopian and literary cultures in which figures of human clones have taken different shapes since the 1960s. At that time, scientists developed utopian views in which the "clone" became a metaphor for future possibilities of transcending and reshaping the human nature. Science fiction writers reacted to this by portraying the human clone as an individual and by depicting human clone figures in a psychological way

Human reproductive cloning and reasons for deprivation.

Human reproductive cloning provides the possibility of genetically related children for persons for whom present technologies are ineffective. I argue that the desire for genetically related children is not, by itself, a sufficient reason to engage in human reproductive cloning. I show this by arguing that the value underlying the desire for genetically related children implies a tension between the parent and the future child. This tension stems from an instance of a deprivation and violates a general principle of reasons for deprivation. Alternative considerations, such as a right to procreative autonomy, do not appear helpful in making the case for human reproductive cloning merely on the basis of the desire for genetically related children.

Moral qualms, future persons, and embryo research.

Many people have moral qualms about embryo research, feeling that embryos must deserve some kind of protection, if not so much as is afforded to persons. This paper will show that these qualms serve to camouflage motives that are really prudential, at the cost of also obscuring the real ethical issues at play in the debate concerning embryo research and therapeutic cloning. This in turn leads to fallacious use of the Actions/Omissions Distinction and ultimately neglects the duties that we have towards future persons.

Rereading Frankenstein: What If Victor Frankenstein Had Actually Been Evil?

As we reread Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at two hundred years, it is evident that Victor Frankenstein is both a mad scientist (fevered, obsessive) and a bad scientist (secretive, hubristic, irresponsible). He's also not a very nice person. He's a narcissist, a liar, and a bad "parent." But he is not genuinely evil. And yet when we reimagine him as evil-as an evil scientist and as an evil person-we can learn some important lessons about science and technology, our contemporary society, and ourselves.

Unexpected Creatures: Procreative Liberty and the Frankenstein Ballet.

One of the most recent and original adaptations of Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) is the ballet version choreographed by Liam Scarlett and performed by the Royal Ballet in 2016 and the San Francisco Ballet in 2017 and 2018. What emerges from this translation is an economical, emotionally wrenching, and visually elegant drama of family tragedy from which we can draw a cautionary tale about contemporary bioethical dilemmas in family making that new and forthcoming biomedical technologies present. This performance of bodies interacting suggests the need for an ethics of acceptance and recognition as people navigate complex familial relationships involving procreative liberty, questions of moral personhood, and parental obligation. In the Frankenstein ballet, the narrative genre of dance-what I'll call "story in the flesh"-invites viewers to identify with the characters and enter into the complexity of interpersonal relations. The ballet becomes a compelling testimony about possible unintended outcomes set in motion by well-intended fallible humans like themselves.

Twins: A cloning experience.

Drawing upon qualitative interviews with monozygotic (identical) twins sharing 100% of their genes, and with dizygotic (fraternal) twins and singletons as control groups, this paper explores what it means to be genetically identical. (The twins interviewed were from the TwinsUK register in London.) In the context of the ongoing debate on human reproductive cloning, it examines questions such as: To what extent do identical twins perceive their emotional and physical bond to be a result of their genetic makeup? What would they think if they had been deliberately created genetically identical? How would they feel about being genetically identical to a person who was born a few years earlier or later? First, our respondents ascribed no great significance to the role of genes in their understanding of what it means to be identical twins. Second, the opinion that human reproductive cloning would "interfere with nature", or "contradict God's will", was expressed by our respondents exclusively on the abstract level. The more our respondents were able to relate a particular invented cloning scenario to their own life-worlds, the lower the prevalence of the argument. Third, for all three groups of respondents, the scenario of having been born in one of the other groups was perceived as strange. Fourth, the aspect that our respondents disliked about cloning scenarios was the potential motives of the cloners. Without equating monozygotic twins directly with "clones", these results from "naturally" genetically identical individuals add a new dimension to what a future cloning situation could entail: The cloned person might possibly (a) perceive a close physical and emotional connection to the progenitor as a blessing; (b) suffer from preconceptions of people who regard physical likeness as a sign of incomplete individuality; and (c) perceive the idea of not having been born a clone of a particular person as unpleasant.

Human cloning: Eastern Mediterranean Region perspective.

Recent advances in genomics and biotechnology have ushered in a new era in health development. Therapeutic cloning possesses enormous potential for revolutionizing medical and therapeutic techniques. Cloning technology, however, is perceived as having the potential for reproductive cloning, which raises serious ethical and moral concerns. It is important that the Islamic countries come to a consensus on this vital issue. Developing science and technology for better health is a religious and moral obligation. There is an urgent need for Muslim scholars to discuss the issue of stem cell research and cloning rationally; such dialogue will not only consider the scientific merits but also the moral, ethical and legal implications.

Human cloning and 'posthuman' society.

Since early 1997, when the creation of Dolly the sheep by somatic cell nuclear transfer was announced in Nature, numerous government reports, essays, articles and books have considered the ethical problems and policy issues surrounding human reproductive cloning. In this article, I consider what response a modern liberal society should give to the prospect of human cloning, if it became safe and practical. Some opponents of human cloning have argued that permitting it would place us on a slippery slope to a repugnant future society, comparable to that portrayed in Aldous Huxley's novel, Brave New World. I conclude that, leaving aside concerns about safety, none of the psychological or social considerations discussed in this article provides an adequate policy justification for invoking the state's coercive powers to prevent human cloning.

What's so bad about human cloning?

There appears to be a consensus in the general community that reproductive cloning is an immoral technology that should be banned. It may, however, be argued, at least from the perspective of the Jewish tradition, that reproductive cloning has many positive benefits. It is thus essential that one carefully weigh the costs and the benefits before deciding on a definitive course of action.

Genetic technologies and achieving health for populations.

The remarkable progress in genetics over the last 50 years has led to the development of genetic technologies to identify or alter genes in living organisms, and these technologies can be applied to people. This article presents background information on the role of genetics in human disease, outlines the technologies, and discusses the sources of the strong push for a genetic approach to ill-health and some implications and harmful consequences of using these genetic technologies. The determinants of most diseases are complex and are embedded in a social context. To focus on only one strand of this web--the genetic strand--because it is one that may be amenable to biological/pharmaceutical treatment, although profitable for industry, does not address other important determinants of health and may lead to a harmful overemphasis on genetic approaches. The author outlines some limitations to the potential contribution of genetic technologies to population health across the globe and the need for policy development if these technologies are to have an appropriate place in health care.

[Cloning: applications in humans. II. Ethical considerations]. / Kloneren: toepassingen bij de mens. II. Ethische verkenning.

Reproductive cloning in adults/children evokes unfavourable reactions. Direct objections are that cloning is unnatural, that it affects human dignity and violates the individual's right to genetic uniqueness. Consequential objections concern unjustified health risks for the progeny, unjustified psychosocial risks for the clone child and the risk of cloning for eugenetic purposes. There is consensus that reproductive cloning of existing persons is unjustifiable as yet because of the health risks for the offspring. Reproductive cloning of embryos is possible by means of nucleus transplantation and of embryo splitting. The ethical analysis of reproductive cloning of embryos depends on the purposes and applications. At least some of the moral objections against cloning of adults/children are not or not completely applicable to reproductive cloning of embryos. Conditions to be put to reproductive cloning of embryos are efficacy, safety and, at least for the time being, avoidance of asynchrony in transferring identical embryos. The ethical aspects of its application in the context of genetical reproductive techniques must be evaluated separately. Therapeutic cloning may be acceptable if alternatives are lacking.