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The Bioethics of Interdependence: Shin Buddhist Attitudes on Human Cloning

Naoki Nabeshima, Professor, Ryukoku University, Kyoto

An Interim Report of The Japanese National Bioethics Committee's Commission on Science and Technology

In Japan, the Ishikawa Livestock General Center succeeded on July 5, 1998, in cloning female twin calves from a somatic cell of a cow for the first time in the world. This was accomplished under direction of Prof. Yukio Tsunoda of Kinki University.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture report of April 23 1999, so far:

  • 57 calves cloned from somatic cells have been born.

  • 35 calves cloned from somatic cells are still alive.

  • 461 cloned calves have been made by nuclear transplantation from embryos.

  • 164 cloned calves from embryo are still alive.
    (These are the figures for March 31 1999)

One hundred eighty cloned calves have been made by nuclear transplantation from embryos in a year on the average. Although Japan has very advanced technology for cloning calves, Japan is extremely cautious in applying this technology to humans.

The Japanese National Bioethics Committee's Commission on Science and Technology produced an interim report entitled "Fundamental Policies on Cloning Technology" on June 15, 1998. Two cases are included in this report, one is a presently applicable case and the other is a potentiality.

 The Japan Commission listed three cases which cloning can be used.

  • To insure a stable supply of food

Cloning technology makes it possible to produce livestock with excellent qualities, such as high quality meat and high milk output, to provide a stable and efficient production of food.

  • To insure a stable supply of animals for experimentation.

Various experiments have been performed using test animals in many fields of the sciences. Cloning technology makes it possible to reproduce a great number of animals that share the same genetic background. These animals will make contributions to develop the sciences, especially in the medical field.

  • To produce genetically enhanced medicines.

Cloned animals which are transformed with genes of useful proteins from humans such as hormones or enzymes can consistently supply these in blood or milk to make them easily available and in large quantity for medical treatment.

The committee also listed the possible application of cloning technology for humans. These are as follows :

  • Cloning technology will give infertile couples a chance to have children.

  • Cloning technology will make it possible to make organs for transplant from cloned animals with integrated human genes. However, so far we have not been able to control the differentiation of the fertilized ova. If a cloned human is made in order to produce the organs for transplant, not only their humanity but also their dignity will be completely negated.

  • In the study of science, cloning technology will lead to the elucidation of cell development, morphogenesis, apoptosis and so on.

According to the committee, cloning of human beings should be banned because there is a danger that the dignity of human will be compromised. This committee provides four reasons:

  • The production of complete human being is using this technology only to satisfy some specified person's self-interest. The commission believes that a society which allows the use of cloning to create human being fails to respect individual human rights and human existence.

  • The cloned human is created through asexual reproduction. To produce a cloned human with cloning technology is an extreme deviation from the common sense of most Japanese, namely that both sexes should participate in the creation of new life and individual genetic information should be decided accidentally through sexual reproduction. There is no variation of genetic characteristics in cloned humans.

  • Even if human cloning technology is used for medical purposes such as infertility treatment, it is an undeniable fact that it can lead to the selective breeding of human beings.

  • Even if human cloning technology is used expediently, except for medical purposes, for instance to store one's own cells (genes) expecting to come back to life in the future, it is a kind of human breeding and is nothing but a misuse of technology. It will serve to confuse the importance of generational succession so fundamental to the Japanese.

Email link | Feedback | Contributed by: Boston University. Video adapted from the Issues for the Millennium Workshop

The Bioethics of Interdependence: Shin Buddhist Attitudes on Human Cloning


Introduction: Jensine Andresen and Robert Neville
John Westling - Introduction: Do we have dominion over ourselves?
Overcoming Preconception Relating to Assisted Reproductive Technologies
Implications of Animal Cloning Experiments for the Potential Cloning of Human Beings
Production of Embryonic Stem Cells from Differentiated Somatic Cells
Application of Cloning to the Production of Biopharmaceuticals to Treat Human and Animal Disease
Xenotransplantation and its Associated Safety and Ethical Issues
Excluding Life from Patenting: Arguments against the Patenting of Genes
Science Panel Discussion
Ethical Challenges in a Post Genome Era
Human Rights and the New Genetics
Human Rights and Cloning
Democratizing Decision Making Relating to Biotechnology
Genetics, the Market, and Policy
Much Ado About Mutton: An Ethical Review of the Cloning Controversy
Why Worry about Human Cloning?
Modified Natural-Law Approach to Genetic Technologies
Ethics Panel Discussion
The World is Our Parish...So...?
Re-engineering Creation: Theological Reservations Concerning Genetic Technology
Possible Presbyterian Responses to Cloning
Biostewardish Updates
No, Not Yet, Maybe, and Why Not: Protestant Ambivalence Or Moral Discretion?
Beginning Reflections of One Unitarian Universalist on Cloning and Genetic Technologies
A Catholic Perspective on Cloning and Stem Cell Research
Created in Whose Image and Likeness? An Orthodox Christian Approach to Human Cloning
Thomas Shannon - "Playing God"
But Who Speaks for Me? The Need for the Religous Voice in Bioethics
In God's Garden: Creation and Cloning in Jewish Thought
A Jewish Perspective on Cloning and Other Techniques to Overcome Infertility
Islamic Perspectives on Cloning and Genetic Enginerring
A Hindu View based on Dharma, Karma and Yoga of Human Cloning and Genetic Technologies
Moral Imagination
Interreligious Panel Discussion
Science and the Courts
Beyond Biology: Regulating Ownership in a Knowledge-based Economy
Biotechnology and International Trade
Disharmonization in Agricultural Biotechnology
Historical Notes Relating to the Patenting of Biological Inventions
Should Morality be Within the Purview of Patent Law?
The International Treatment of Biotechnological Intellectual Property (BIP)
Legal Issues Panel Discussion
Science, Politics and Ethics of Cloning and Genetic Engineering: Who will Decide the Future of Humankind?
Cloning and Beyond: Making Laws for Making Babies
Issues For the Millennium: Cloning and Genetic Technologies - Index

Source:

Boston University

See also:

Genetics
Ethics
Controversy
Ecology
Theology
Health
Pain and Suffering
Opinions
Books on Biology, Genetics and Theology
Dolly the Cloned Sheep
Egg Manipulation
Chromosome
DNA Double-Helix