Nothing new under the sun of bioethics. In the late ‘70s a hot debate started about the moral lawfulness of cloning or not cloning man: reasons for and against were tabled and, in the end, it was decided that there was no point in discussing the issue before knowing whether cloning was indeed possible. After the birth of Dolly, the only sheep that has hit the headlines and then gone down in history, new discussions and worries followed.
Cloning was indeed possible and the arguments required to prevent technology from abusing the human condition were well-known: but that was not enough.
Today we receive the announcement, still fully unverified, of the birth of Eva, who is said to be the first cloned child. The announcement has been followed by more debates, plus an additional factor: a few members of the scientific community, that is those who are in fact in a position to play a role through the mass media by making their opinion known, are backing a new form of cloning, the so-called therapeutic cloning. In other words, it looks as if there are two types of cloning: a good one and a bad one.
The difference between therapeutic cloning (the good one) and reproductive cloning (the bad one) would appear to solely lie in the purpose: in the first case (the good one!) the embryo generated with the cloning method is meant for the purpose of extracting staminal cells for therapeutic use (and is hence destroyed, that is killed); in the other case (the bad one) the embryo is received in the womb and one more twin is to come to light. No debates nor arguments against cloning itself are needed (nor is it necessary to remind people that it is better to allow a human embryo to be born than to kill one) when the willingness exists to simply please oneself and when financial interests and health-related myths (in the sacred sense of the word) grow intertwined.
The word “therapeutic” is sufficient to transform and rehabilitate any human action. If, instead of talking of war against Iraq, people said that we are to carry out a therapeutic action, possibly a lot of resistance would be overcome, as well as many objections against the possibility of such an event occurring in the near future.

But the West has its own myths, its own rites and languages. If it is not sufficient to appeal to the “therapeutic” aspect to support a certain research field, we have a reserve argument: the appeal to the freedom of science. We all know that, by definition, science is something that cannot be stopped.
Everyone says that.
Of course, when we are thinking about science to be promoted and defended, we are not referring to philately or to classic philology, to statistics or mathematics (which are sciences too), but rather to all those disciplines which the collective imagination views as serving man’s health, that is those that also have a therapeutic purpose. However, irrespective of any debate on freedom itself within science, the fact remains that scientists, who are men too, are still part of a political and economic context, which allows the performance of certain research works rather than of others and which supports certain sciences rather than others.

Every time we are spending money on one research we are taking that money away from another research: this means that always, every day, science is stopped, and those who appeal to the freedom of research are first of all trying to defend their own freedom, knowing very well that the grants they will obtain in terms of funds and equipment will be taken away from other scientific researches. As we all know, myths exist to provide comfort, and man requires many myths when reasons are missing and willpower takes priority over any appeal to truth.

Nothing new under the sun: debates concerning bioethics get more repetitive and even a bit boring every day. Only hopes (new therapies, health, happiness) and fears (new disasters, pains and deaths), which may be more or less irrational, contend with each other for the first place in a question which, possibly, has already been decided upon elsewhere.

Adriano Pessina
Cattedra di Bioetica Università Cattolica
del S.Cuore - Milano

Translated by interpres sas