Human cloning should be banned, audience members at last night’s 14th Great Debate voted after students and experts debated the issue in the Tsai Performance Center.
The debate, sponsored by the College of Communication, featured three speakers, including one student, on each side, followed by audience comments. The debate closed with arguments from each side’s lead speaker Judy Norsigian for the affirmative and John Robertson for the negative after which audience members voted by moving to the side of the room for which they were in favor.
BU journalism professor Robert Zelnick, who chaired the debate, first announced the winner to be the negative side, but reversed the decision after taking a second look at audience members in the balcony of the Tsai Performance Center who voted in the affirmative.
Norsigian, the executive director of Our Bodies, Ourselves, argued human cloning should be banned because of moral and medical considerations.
In terms of safety, she said there are ‘likely to be bizarre and unpredictable outcomes’ during the early phases of testing.
She expressed concern over the possible ‘commodification’ of children that could result from cloning, as well as the unsettling idea that ‘children with disabilities could come to be seen as inferior ‘products.”
Unlike many others who argue against human cloning, Norsigian made clear that she is opposed to human reproductive cloning, but not cloning for research purposes.
‘I support embryo stem cell research under an adequate regulatory framework,’ she said.
Robertson, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, made the main argument against a cloning ban, saying the practice has yet to be explored enough to pass such a strong judgment on the issue.
If human cloning were ‘safe and effective, it would serve reproductive interests that cannot be achieved’ with currently available reproductive technology, Robertson said.
The phrase ‘safe and effective’ became one that was reiterated by the negative side throughout the debate. All the speakers opposed to a ban acknowledged that cloning is not currently safe and effective, but said with more research it could be used for beneficial purposes. A general ban on the practice is premature, they said.
One such purpose brought up by Robertson was to allow an infertile couple or a lesbian couple to have a child to which they are genetically related.
‘The nucleus of a somatic [non-reproductive] cell from the husband can be transferred to the wife’s egg,’ he said.
The next round of speakers were students in the College of Communication. Melissa Troiano, a junior in COM and the College of Arts and Sciences, spoke first for the affirmative side.
Troiano discussed safety issues such as problems with using ‘old’ DNA from somatic cells rather than the usual reproductive cells. She cited the fact that Dolly, the cloned sheep, had arthritis.
‘There could also be developmental defects that may not be seen for many years,’ she said.
Katie Smith, a senior in COM, followed Troiano’s argument by advocating human reproductive cloning as ‘last-resort reproduction.’
Human cloning should be available ‘only to those who are unable to reproduce in any other fashion,’ she said.
The last speaker for the affirmative side was Patrick Lee, a professor of philosophy at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.
Lee spoke of the unethical use of human embryos for research purposes.
‘A human embryo has the potential to become a mature human being and therefore deserves moral respect,’ Lee said.
He stressed that he believed human cloning would lead to the ‘destruction of human individuals.’
The final speaker of the debate was Lee Silver, a professor of molecular biology and public affairs at Princeton University.
Silver discussed how 25 years ago bioethicists thought that ‘test tube babies would be seen as products,’ but how in vitro fertilization has become much more acceptable in recent years.
He also stressed that ‘genes do not determine our outcome in life.’ Our genetic makeup is only one factor that determines who we are, he said.
Audience members also made comments on the issue.
Luke Corby, a graduate of St. Anselms College, said he is for a ban because of the unknown future implications of cloning.
‘There is no way to test the long term effects [of human cloning] … we can’t predict what effects it may have 10 or 15 years down the road,’ he said.
Scott Wintner, a sophomore in COM, asked the rhetorical question, ‘When in our society did we stop taking risks?’ Another student asked, ‘What are we risking all this for?’