ethical issues in livestock cloning

PAUL B. THOMPSON

ETHICAL ISSUES IN LIVESTOCK CLONING

(Accepted July 8 1999)

ABSTRACT. Although cloning may eventually become an important technology for live-stock production, four ethical issues must be addressed before the practice becomes wide-spread. First, researchers must establish that the procedure is not detrimental to the healthor well-being of affected animals. Second, animal research institutions should evaluate thenet social benefits to livestock producers by weighing the benefits to producers against theopportunity cost of research capacity lost to biomedical projects. Third, scientists shouldconsider the indirect effects of cloning research on the larger ethical issues surroundinghuman cloning. Finally, the market structure for products of cloned animals should protectindividual choice, and should recognize that many individuals find the prospect of cloning(or consuming cloned animals) repugnant. Analysis of these four issues is complicated byspurious arguments alleging that cloning will have a negative impact on environment andgenetic diversity.

INTRODUCTION

I will begin with a brief discussion of cloning, offering a few definitionsand clarifications. I will then discuss five general ethical issues or concernsthat might be associated with cloning livestock. First, some have allegedthat environmental impact associated with livestock cloning, specificallyas it relates to genetic diversity and monoculture, provides a strong caseagainst the practice. I will argue that this is a psuedo-problem. I will thendiscuss four ethical concerns associated with mammalian cloning, espe-cially as regards cloning of traditional livestock species such as sheep,pigs or cattle. I will review ethical consideration relevant to the welfareor well-being of the animals involved in cloning research or, should theday come, commercial production of clones. Next, I will review some ofcloning’s social consequences for the livestock production sector. I willalso consider the ethical significance of links between human and animalcloning. Finally, I will review arguments for the conclusion that animalcloning is repugnant, a claim that itself has two implications. On the onehand, some claim that animal cloning is intrinsically wrong, on the otherhand some make the weaker claim that repugnance is a sufficient reasonfor rejecting food products from cloned animals.

Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics11: 197–217, 1999.© 1999Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

198 PAUL B. THOMPSON

My analysis of these issues supports the permissibility and value ofanimal cloning research, though it calls attention to crucial areas wherethe failure to follow fair and open procedures is itself ethically question-able. I believe that these procedural issues are quite serious. I would, infact, surmise that much of the opposition to cloning and genetic tech-nology is motivated by a general feeling of foreboding about the drift ofagricultural technology, and a feeling of being excluded from the socialdecision process. Genetic technologies are not singularly problematic; itis the general direction of technical change in agriculture that is at issue.I thus suspect that genetic technologies are singled out for criticism lessbecause they are feared than because they are a target of opportunity forthose who have deep qualms about the direction of change in our foodsystems (see Thompson, 1998).

However, any adequate analysis of the surmise offered in the previousparagraph is far beyond the scope of the present paper. The present paperis, thus, inevitably somewhat narrow, and I justify its scope as follows.Although I include myself among those with qualms about the direction oftechnical change in agriculture, I cannot abandon rigor in pursuit of activeopposition to cloning and other forms of genetic technology. In my view,critiques do a disservice when they fail to undertake a careful analysisthat attempts to understand how specific effects are related to particularfeatures of an agricultural technology. In the case of cloning, that analysisends with the conclusion that to single out cloning is to promote a poorlyinformed and unsophisticated critique of what needs to be changed in agri-cultural technology. I believe that any temporary political gains that mightbe gleaned from a rejection of cloning based on unsound arguments arerepaid with further decline in the broader public’s capacity to understandagriculture, its problems and prospects, and its role as the cornerstone forhuman civilization. As such, I am condemned to my distinctions and to anideal of clarity and rigor in argument.

LIVESTOCK CLONING

The word ‘cloning’ refers to a large class of reproductive technologiesperformed in laboratory, industrial and even household settings. Homegardeners who propagate plants with cuttings are performing a rudi-mentary form of cloning. The biological fact common to all forms ofcloning is that the new organism or cell has the same genetic make-up,the same DNA, as the original organism or cell from which it was cloned.For convenience of discussion I will use the term ‘clone’ to indicate the

ETHICAL ISSUES IN LIVESTOCK CLONING 199

cell or organism that has been produced through cloning. I will use theterm ‘clonee’ to indicate the cell or organism that has been cloned.

While cloning of plants is relatively routine, mammals have only beencloned during the past decade. Cloning techniques are still emerging andbeing refined, so the term ‘livestock cloning’ indicates an ill-defined classof approaches to asexual reproduction of farm animals. However, at thiswriting the approaches are essentially of two kinds.Embryonic cloningcan be used to make multiple copies of embryonic cells, each of which willundergo cell division and growth, producing genetically identical animals.Embryonic cloning produces clones with no clonee. Rather, an embryo thatmight have developed to produce one adult organism is multiplied so thatit produces two or more. It isadult cell cloningthat has sparked debatesince it was first announced by Ian Wilmut in February of 1997. Here,the DNA is removed from the tissues of an adult, developed organism andinserted into an egg cell that has had its own DNA removed (Wilmut andcoauthors, 1997). The terms ‘clone’ and ‘clonee’ are fully appropriate todescribe adult cell cloning.

The basic biology of adult cell cloning has been described many timesbefore. Readers should consult one of the books or articles that appearedafter Wilmut introduced his cloned sheep “Dolly” to the world (see Silver,1997; Kolata, 1998). This paper will focus on adult cell cloning of live-stock species. This is not to imply that embryonic cloning faces no ethicalchallenges. Indeed, some issues that apply to adult cell cloning apply toembryonic cloning as well. However, the fact that adult cell cloning allowsone to begin with a fully developed individual entails that it will likely bethe method of choice for most applications of livestock cloning that arenow being contemplated. Much is unknown about an individual before itdevelops into an adult – its productivity, its health, even its genetic consti-tution. Adult cell cloning allows one to choose the clonee with much morecomplete knowledge of its traits and characteristics.

GENETIC DIVERSITY: A ETHICAL PSUEDO-PROBLEM

We may begin by reviewing why genetic diversity might be thought signifi-cant in the first place. First it is important to distinguish the diversity ofspecies within a wild ecosystem from the diversity of alleles in the genepool of an inter-fertile species. Both forms of diversity are important inecology, and both are used as indicators of ecosystem health. However,it is only the latter form of diversity that is relevant to the currentdiscussion. All the moral claims depend on a presumptive hypothesis ofevolutionary biology. Greater variation in a species’ gene pool supports a


higher capacity to evolve in response to environmental threats. A pathogenthat attacks one particular sequence of DNA, or one particular proteinsynthesized by DNA, may be ineffective against another. Hence where itis possible for organisms in the species to have variation in the geneticsequence, it will improve their ecological fitness to do so.

Genetic Diversity, Ecosystems and Agriculture

When speaking of wild populations in wild ecosystems, genetic diversityconfers an ability to adapt to a changing environment of pathogens. This,in turn, gives the species more resilience, and hence a more secure hold onits ecological niche. If maintaining natural variety is itself a goal, geneticdiversity is both an indicator of natural variety and a means to protect it.However, the case for agriculture is markedly different. Reducing geneticdiversity is endemic to agriculture. When an ordinary peasant farmerselects seed to replant based on taste, color or drought tolerance, the plantsgrown from the chosen seed will have less genetic diversity (hence lessfitness) than those in the wild population. Aland raceis a crop or animalvariety created through this centuries long process of farmer trial anderror. Land races survive not because they have a greater genetic capacityto resist environmental threats than their wild relatives do, but becausefarmers intervene in the environment to protect crops and livestock fromat least some environmental threats – predation, competition for food,sunlight and water (see Vavilov, 1992).

Compared to modern plant varieties and animal breeds, land races havemuch more genetic diversity. They will resist a larger array of diseasesand will produce under a broader array of climatic conditions. James C.Scott (1977) argues that subsistence and industrial producers adopt distinctstrategies for coping with risk in response to this situation. Peasant farmersmust avoid the risk of starvation at all costs. They tend to maintain ahigh degree of diversity in their crops in order to decrease the chance ofa total crop failure, even when doing so decreases yields in an averageyear. Industrial producers face financial risks, which are calibrated to theaverage year. They do not depend solely on their own farming for theirfood supply, and can afford crop failures so long as they do not occur morefrequently than average. What they cannot afford is to produce less thanaverage yields year in and year out, for the price of their commodity willtend to reflect the cost of production for producer’s getting an average (orbetter) yield.

Subsistence farmers thus have an incentive to maintain the geneticdiversity in land races, while industrial producers have an incentive toproduce the highest possible average yield. In both cases, genetic diversity


takes on significance because it can be a contributing cause in crop failure.In the subsistence case, crop failure leads inevitably to hunger and famine.In the case, industrial case, it leads to financial losses, which may berecouped in subsequent years. However, if all farmers are producing cropsand livestock from the same, narrow gene pool, the chance that any givenpathogen will destroy the entire industrial crop is greater than the chancethat the same pathogen will destroy a crop grown from a land race. Thisdoes not rule out the possibility that genetic diversity in agricultural plantsand animals might have or lack some characteristic of functional integritythat would dictate a particular balance point between the maximal diversityof wild species and the narrow diversity of industrial crops. Nevertheless,the usual arguments stressing genetic diversity in agricultural plants andanimals stress the risks borne either by individual producers or by thepopulation at large when plant and animal diseases become epidemic.

We may summarize the discussion as follows. Genetic and speciesdiversity are important components of ecosystem health in wild ecosys-tems. If we have obligations to preserve wild ecosystems, we haveobligations to preserve and promote both forms of diversity. Agriculturenecessarily involves some reduction in the ecological fitness of plants andanimals and a corresponding intervention in the environment to protectthese less fit organisms from threats that would destroy them in a wildecosystem environment. As such, striking the balance point betweenincreasing average yields and the ecological resilience of plant and animalspecies and varieties is a constant problem for agriculture. This agronomicproblem becomes a moral problem to the extent that farming methodsthreaten food shortages, endangering the lives of the humans who dependon the food system in question.

Genetic Diversity and the Critique of Genetic Technology

Jack Doyle (1985) was one of the first to raise questions about the environ-mental impact of the new agricultural biotechnology, and much of hisargument inAltered Harvestdepended on considerations such as thosereviewed above. In particular, the 1973 Corn Blight in the North AmericanGreat Plains formed a key foundation for Doyle’s analysis. At that time, avast majority of maize cultivars in use shared a common genetic sourcein Texas T cytoplasm. The Texas T cytoplasm gene locus made plantsvulnerable to Corn Blight, resulting a massive North American crop failureand temporarily high prices for cereals and animal feeds. According toDoyle, the problem was that cultivars lacked sufficient genetic diversity,hence were too widely susceptible to a particular disease. The narrowedgenetic diversity of corn cultivars had been brought about by conven-


tional breeding techniques. Thus, Doyle cautioned, new biotechnologies(of which cloning would be a prime example) could inadvertently increasethe risk of a catastrophe equaling or exceeding that of the 1973 CornBlight.

Doyle popularized a kind of genetic diversity argument that has beenlinked to cloning by distinguished authors such as Paul Raeburn (1995)and Bernard Rollin (1997). Like Doyle, Raeburn is primarily interested incrops, and the moral significance of diversity owes to its role in avertingthe risks of widespread crop failure and famine. Rollin, however, appliesthe argument to animals. Describing the narrowing of the gene pool indomestic egg production, for example, Rollin writes, “Given the adventof a new pathogen or other dramatic changes, the laying hens could allbe decimated or even permanently destroyed because of our inability tomanage the pathogen” (Rollin, 1997, p. 31). He goes on to note that “agri-culture’s only safety net against ravaged monocultures are hobby fanciers. . . who perpetuate many exotic strains of chickens” (Rollin, 1997, p. 31).Rollin thus reiterates an argument that Doyle and Raeburn made withrespect to cereal grains in relation to poultry.

Yet the case for cereals is importantly different than the case for eggs.So what if a layer monoculture is decimated by disease? Egg prices willrise, to be sure, but the producers who are responsible for narrowing thegene pool in the first place will experience the brunt of the losses. If poultryproducers are foolish enough to take this risk, they should be expected tosuffer the consequences. This looks less like an ethical problem than aninstance of just deserts. The cereals case differs from any livestock casein that catastrophic failures in any of the main cereal crops – rice, maizeor wheat – could precipitate a global food crisis. Catastrophic failures inany single livestock commodity – beef, pork, and poultry – would createan inconvenience. Yet in virtue of the fact that livestock consume moreprotein than they produce, such an event would not negatively affect totalglobal food supply. There may, as always, be tragic distributive problemsassociated with any disruption of the food system (see Sen, 1984), butthey operate independently of cloning, engineering and genetic diversityconsiderations.

In short, genetic diversity arguments applied to livestock do not hingeupon moral concerns. Disease resistance and resilience are componentsof average yield for crop farming and animal production. Farmers muststrike a balance among all the factors that contribute to yield, but in normalcircumstances finding that balance is consistent with the farmer’s self-interest (Wooliams and Wilmut, 1998). The balance becomes a moral issuewhen farming methods place the broader human population’s food supply


at risk. While this is a serious threat with respect to cereal crops, failuresin livestock production do not lead to general famine. Nevertheless, thegenetic diversity argument against cloning has been taken further by LantzMiller (1998), who does not cite problems associated with famine risk.

Miller follows Rollin’s reasoning in noting that narrow gene poolscreate an opportunity for the evolution of pathogens and the rapid spreadof disease. Miller. answers the “so what” question by noting that moreanimals will suffer. Hence, genetic diversity in livestock herds is importantbecause animals will suffer as a result of catastrophic disease outbreaks,and the chance of such outbreaks is higher when cloning technology isused on a widespread basis. In addition, he notes that a herd of clones isless fit than a herd of naturally bred animals. Miller seems to attributeethical significance to the degree of fitness. Yet his argument here isunclear, especially in light of the fact that agriculture necessarily involvessome reduction in natural fitness. It appears that Miller has simply muddiedthe kind of ecological fitness concern that lies at the basis of diversity inunmanaged ecosystems. As I have been arguing, translation of this concernto agricultural systems requires more sophistication than critics of cloning,including Miller, have thus far demonstrated.

Yet in tying ethical concern to the well being of animals in a herdof clones, Miller has also shifted the ground for diversity arguments ina fundamental way. He claims that reduced diversity in livestock herdsis significant because it creates a health risk to the animals, and that themoral significance derives from viewing this from the animals’ point ofview. Conventional diversity arguments attach significance to the fitnessand resilience of the entire breeding population, but Miller’s argumentderives part of its moral force from the impact on individual animals. Itis thus a hybrid of diversity and animal welfare concerns (see Thompson,1998). It will thus be necessary to revisit this aspect of Miller’s argumentbelow.

OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

There are at least three additional environmental risks associated withgenetic engineering. First, there has been a longstanding debate about thepotential for gene flow between engineered and wild plants. Here, geneticengineering could reduce diversity (hence fitness) in non-domesticatedorganisms, as well as agricultural species. Gene flow, however, is notnormally a problem in livestock production. Potential for gene flow in live-stock can be controlled by limiting the opportunity for engineered livestockto mate with wild relatives. This concern will receive no further atten-


tion here. Second, genetic engineering could increase reproductive fitness,while reducing survival fitness. For example, fish have been geneticallyengineered to grow faster. Faster-growing (hence larger) fish may have areproductive advantage over wild or non-engineered competitors: they maybe able to mate at a higher rate. However, if genetically engineered fish arein other respectslessfit for survival in the wild (as common opinion inmolecular biology has it), the result will be a narrowing of the gene pooland a corresponding decline in fitness for the species as a whole. Risksof this sort are extremely significant where wild and domesticated animalsenjoy opportunities for inter-breeding. Since that is generally not the casefor modern livestock production, this kind of risk can also be eliminatedfrom consideration in the present context.

The third form of impact may be the most significant from an environ-mental perspective. Cloning and genetic engineering can be used in aresearch program that expands the range of livestock farming, displacingfragile and endangered habitat for wild species. For example, if genetictechnology were used to develop a strain of cattle resistant to Africantrypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), the result might well be that vastareas of the Rift Valley would, for the first time, be available for livestockgrazing. These lands are currently home to the last migratory herds ofgazelle, wildebeest and zebra, as well as elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lionsand hippos. Biotechnology that would displace these animals from theirhabitat raises serious environmental issues, indeed. Here, biotechnologyaffects the diversity of wild populations by depriving them of habitat. Inview of the fact that human residents of the Rift Valley are subsistencefarmers and pastoralists, highly vulnerable to famine and food crisis, thereis also a strong rationale favoring such applications of biotechnology.

Although this is an under-appreciated environmental risk, it is, in thepresent context, beside the point. Cloning itself would not produce thisresult, for it would not result in an organism with adaptive capabilitiesdifferent from those of the clonee. Cloning might be one component ofa large-scale program to bring this about including genetic engineeringand conventional breeding, and any such program deserves careful andthorough ethical debate. If the genome of the clonee could, if multipliedthroughout a herd, pose risk to wildlife or environment, cloning certainlyprovides a way to affect such multiplication, for example. Furthermore, theindirect route to narrowed genetic diversity not in livestock themselves, butin wild populations suggests that a very different concern has been raised.No longer are we considering the same issues of genetic diversity raised byDoyle and Rollin. Now the issue seems to relate more squarely to habitat


preservation, and the argument from genetic diversity is a tortuous route tothis familiar concern in environmental ethics.

To conclude, though there are important environmental ethics issuesthat attach to genetic technology, it is not clear that livestock cloning givesrise to any of them. It is, however, important for me to be careful in statingthe spirit in which this conclusion is offered. My analysis depends on aparticular conception of how environmental concerns differ from social oranimal welfare concerns. That conception is implicit in the organizationof this essay, and was made explicit in my bookFood Biotechnology inEthical Perspective. In reaching the conclusion that livestock cloning canpass the environmental tests, I am not being dismissive of environmentalconcerns nor of people who, like Miller, tend to advance criticisms thatI see as non-environmental under the banner of environmental impact. Ihave tried to present reasons why those who foresee environmental riskfrom livestock cloning owe us a more careful analysis of the mechanismsthat underlie this risk, as well as a more thorough discussion of why theunwanted outcomes are ethically significant.

ANIMAL WELFARE

Does livestock cloning subject animals that are involved in either researchor commercial production settings to undue stress or any unjustifiablecompromise to the standards of good husbandry? There is a vigorousdebate over the definition and measurement of welfare impact fromconventional and industrial animal production systems. Hence it is difficultto state exactly what level or kind of animal welfare is to serve as a criteria.However, it seems reasonable to evaluate cloning in comparison to currentpractices using Bernard Rollin’sprinciple of the conservation of welfare.Rollin’s principle was devised to cover cases of genetic engineering. Itstates that, other things being equal, it is unethical to produce an animalworse off with respect to suffering and deprivation than comparableanimals of the species produced through conventional breeding. Appliedto cloning, it means thatif cloned animals had substantially lower welfarethat conventionally bred animals, it would be acceptable to produce themonly if doing so serves some morally compelling end (such as the cure fora serious disease) (Rollin, 1995).

Rollin’s principle rules out certain forms of genetic manipulation. Yetgiven Rollin’s principle, cloning raises an animal welfare concern only tothe extent that cloning is the proximal cause of some impact that would nothave been experienced by a conventionally bred animal in similar labora-tory or production settings. As Rollin (1997) himself has noted, cloning


does not introduce modifications in the genome. There is little reason toexpect a detrimental result for animal welfare. There are, however, someborderline cases. For example, some individual organisms may be naturalmodels for human disease (or as noted such disease model creatures maybe produced through genetic engineering). If these individuals are clonedfor the purpose of research, cloning becomes implicated in ethical disputesover the development of research animals, the animals’ suffering, and therelative benefit of the research. Some critics of animal research will almostcertainly want to raise this argument against cloning. Even though cloningmay be essential to the production of these research models, however, it isthe genome of the original organism and its clones that leads to suffering,rather than cloning as such. Furthermore, cloning can be applied to healthy,fully functional individuals, as well. The animal welfare argument againstcloning misidentifies the proximal cause of suffering.

Rollin himself has sketched these implications in his 1997 article,“Send In the Clones – Don’t Bother, They’re Here.” He considers andrejects claims alleging that cloning is inherently unethical, concluding thatit is wrong only in cases where it produces unacceptable consequences.Rollin applies this reasoning both to cases of livestock and human cloning.He then offers examples of possible applications for each, and suggests thatwe may rely on deeply felt intuitions for guidance as to whether a partic-ular application violates basic tenets of our social morality. He concludes,“There seems to be nothing inherently wrong with cloning either animalsare humans, though clearly the uses to which the technique is put may raisemoral issues” (Rollin, 1997, p. 39).

What about Miller’s argument to the effect that cloning would exposemore animals to disease risk? A straightforward application of Rollin’sprinciple would rule out any practice that increases exposure to risk ofdisease or ill-health. However, is cloning the practice that does this, or is itusing cloning technology to produce a disease prone gene pool? Cloningcan as easily be used to increase genetic diversity in a gene pool. It is away to keep genes from individual animals who have experienced a repro-ductive failure in the gene pool, and to multiply the number of “copies”of a rare or endangered genome available for interbreeding (Wooliams andWilmut, 1998). Rollin’s principle rules out the foolish use of cloning thatMiller describes, but this is an argument against foolishness, not cloningas such.

Applying Rollin’s principle of conservation of welfare to cloning iscomplicated by factors that Rollin does not acknowledge. The extensivepublic debate on human cloning has shifted the burdens of proof for adefense of livestock cloning. Specifically, the vast majority of commen-


taries on human cloning state that human cloning must not be attemptedin the near term for two reasons. First, cloning techniques describedby Wilmut produce many unviable embryos, raising the possibility ofhuman birth defects. Second, given the low yield of Wilmut’s procedure,it does not justify the physical and emotional stress on women who mustdonate viable egg cells or endure implantation of the cloned embryo forsurrogacy. President Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Committee(NBAC) concluded that risk to the well-being of both cloned child andto women involved in donation of egg cells or surrogate mother hood isunacceptably high (NBAC, 1997). This was, in fact, the NBAC’s primaryrationale against human cloning, implying that if cloning techniques couldbe made safe and reliable, ethical objections to human cloning wouldbecome moot. The question arises, why would these welfare argumentsagainst cloning humans not also apply to livestock?

This is, I believe, an answerable question, though I have located nopublished sources that answer it. The reasoning involves two points. First,livestock born with birth defects would routinely be destroyed irrespectiveof cloning, while humans would not. Hence livestock would not sufferwhere humans would. Second, the fact that animals are routinely sacrificedfor slaughter or research makes the acquisition of host egg cells unprob-lematic, and artificial insemination is also a routine industry norm. Thus,if current practices of euthanasia, slaughter and artificial insemination areacceptable in research and food production, then the use of these practicesto develop cloned animals should be acceptable.

These considerations are probably obvious to most animal scien-tists, but they may be obscure even to people who have broad knowl-edge of animal production. Yet they might well be contested. Supposecloning produces animals that with only slightly reduced welfare. Wouldresearchers terminate their experiment in that case? Should they? Tocomplicate matters even more, Wilmut has written that egg cells fornuclear transfer must be obtained from live, healthy animals using surgicalprocedures (Wilmut, 1998, pp. 16–17). There is no clear public recordwhere these questions are answered. This points toward an unmet respon-sibility on the part of cloning researchers. Researchers should get anexplicit statement of the animal welfare implications of cloning into thepeer-reviewed literature as soon as possible.

Even if the factors that differentiate welfare concerns for human andlivestock cloning experiments can be made clear, there are still unansweredquestions related to the welfare of clones. The British animal protec-tion group Compassion in World Farming has come out against livestockcloning, citing a prevalence of abnormal births. In reaching this judg-


ment, the group discusses Wilmut’s work with Dolly, noting some of theconcerns raised above: “. . . only one of the 11 surrogate mother ewes whoactually gave birth had a normal delivery. Four had caesarian sections andsix were induced because of prolonged gestation. Eight of the 14 lambsborn died within 2 weeks.” They also note health problems experienced ina herd of cattle produced from embryonic cloning. Compassion in WorldFarming also notes the concern raised by Miller (see above). “A herd ofcloned animals genetically engineered to have resistance to one diseasecould turn out to be very susceptible to another one” (Anonymous, 1999).

In rebuttal we may reply that these are not the results one would expectfrom adult cell cloning. Errors in DNA replication and recombination arethe main source of birth defects in ordinary sexual reproduction. In theory,cloning eliminates this source of error, because an intact genome is trans-ferred in toto. Because scientists know a great deal about the clonee, itis possible to screen for a wide array of disease susceptibilities. Thereare thus reasons to think that cloning could substantially reduce the rateof dysfunctional animals produced through ordinary sexual reproduction(see Silver, 1998). Indeed, the welfare track record on successfully clonedmammals appears to be good, suggesting that when the efficiency ofcloning is improved, welfare will not be an issue. Nevertheless, one cannotrule out the possibility that some hitherto unappreciated mechanism willlimit the acceptability of livestock cloning on animal welfare grounds.In the absence of a reliable track record, one must decide whether thisresearch is so risky to animals that it should be discontinued. As alreadynoted above, that is an issue on which we can reasonably expect cloningresearchers to make a clear and explicit defense.

In summary, animal cloning does not appear to introduce novel formsof impact on animal well-being, but researchers have a responsibility toaddress reasonable questions from non-specialists. Given the nature of thedebate over human cloning, they should be prepared to explain why humanand livestock cloning differ in morally relevant respects. Eventually theyshould be able to show that increased efficiency of the procedure willmake its safety (for clone and recipient of embryo transfer) comparableto that of ordinary reproduction through embryo transfer. Furthermore,there should be a refereed and published review of the reasons why welfareconsiderations do not support an argument to eliminate or restrict cloningof livestock so that what is obvious to every animal scientist can becomepart of the public record.


SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

Some of the most hotly debated ethical issues associated with humancloning have to do with the social impact of the technology. Critiquesfear a “commodification” of interpersonal relationships (see Pence, 1998).In agriculture, too, social impact has been a longstanding area of concernwith respect to new technology. Economists and social theorists have docu-mented the “treadmill effect” of agricultural technology with respect tomechanical and chemical inputs. Here efficiencies of scale combine withother market forces, causing a concentration of and increase in scale forproducers of a given commodity. Recombinant bovine somatotropin wasalleged to have negative effects on small dairies as a consequence of thetreadmill effect (Hallberg, 1992). It is possible that cloning could becomethe kind of capital intensive technology that would be beyond the reachof many producers, while give already well-capitalized animal producerssignificant efficiencies. A significant constituency would regard this resultas unfair, particularly in light of the public funds that have supportedcloning research. Krimsky (1991) and Busch et al. (1992) have raised thisargument with respect to other genetic technologies. The general principlehere is that government and publicly funded researchers have a responsi-bility to maintain a level playing field for producers. However, the potentialeffect of cloning on the economics of animal production is highly specu-lative at this juncture. It will become relevant to study the social impactof farm-oriented cloning when the specific applications have been betterconceptualized.

Producers have expressed interest in cloning as a reproductive strategythat will allow greater control over genetics and herd composition.However, the best known work on animal cloning is not geared tofarm-oriented applications. Livestock cloning research is being done inagricultural and veterinary settings, but the primary applications are inpharmaceuticals and medical technologies, such as human organ replace-ment. This suggests that the treadmill argument may be irrelevant tocloning, and that a more subtle kind of social consequence is (or perhapsalready has) taken place. Agricultural and veterinary research has tradi-tionally been organized around a goal of improving productivity andquality for food and fiber. Livestock producers have supported publicsector research because they believed that it would help them be compe-titive while serving the public good. Political support from livestockproducers established an implicit social contract with the animal scienceand veterinary research community. Under this contract, researchers wouldconduct objective scientific enquiry into topics that were of interest to theproducer community (MacKenzie, 1991).


There is little doubt that new cloning research serves the public good,but it is more difficult to see how it benefits producers of food animals.Animal breeders like the prospect of cloning a prize animal, rather thanre-entering the genetic lottery through conventional breeding. Yet it is notyet clear that routine cloning for livestock production purposes will beeconomically feasible. In addition, some animal producers appear to thinkthat pharmaceutical and medical applications of transgenic and clonedanimals will be to their benefit, offering a new product for the live-stock producer. On the face of it, this would appear to be an ill-foundedhope. These extremely valuable animals are unlikely to be raised underconditions that resemble even a technologically advanced food animalproduction facility. If this trend proves out, then livestock producers haveeffectively lost a major portion of their scientific support system to thebetter-funded and politically powerful pharmaceutical and medical supplyindustry.

As with welfare concerns, assessing the significance of social impactis complicated by the lack of clear information about factual matters.Certainly some livestock cloning programs in both academic and commer-cial sectorsdo hope to develop applications for livestock producers. Whatbalance is being struck between livestock research for the farm and foodsector and research that will primarily be used in human medicine? It isworth stressing that biomedical applications may be a very good thingfor the public at large. Compelling ethical arguments justify biomed-ical applications of transgenic and cloned animals. Yet one wonders whyproducers have not protested this development occurring at the expense oftheir own painstakingly built system of public sector research in supportof agriculture. At the least, scientists and administrators have an ethicalresponsibility to communicate the likely applications of transgenic andcloning technology, and should not encourage producers in the hope thatbiomedical applications will somehow benefit them. “Selling” a cloningresearch program to animal commodity producers should turn only on thetechnology’s likely application to food animal production.

LINKS TO HUMAN CLONING

The report of the Bioethics commission stresses the risk and the inconveni-ence of a cloning program to the developing child and to surrogate mothersor women donate egg cells. Yet livestock cloning programs will surelyimprove the efficiency of cloning. Eventually the risks and inconveniencemay appear acceptable to people who wish to have a cloned child, forwhatever reasons. The pattern of developing a pharmaceutical or medical


procedure through veterinary research, then applying it to humans has beenrepeated many times. In most cases, this pattern is a good thing, but cloningis not like most cases.

There is ample evidence that human society is not prepared to coun-tenance the application of cloning technology to human beings. Editorialopinion on the prospect of human cloning ranged from simple repugnance(discussed below) to concern about the legal and psychological impact ofhuman clones. Who would be the legal parents of a cloned child, and how,in general, does cloning affect our conception of familial relations? Doindividuals control their own DNA, or would it be permissible to clonepeople without their permission? Would clones be stigmatized, or wouldthey suffer from a psychologically based identity complex? At the sametime, some groups are already asserting that access to cloning technologyis a part of their reproductive rights (Pence, 1998).

Society needs time to survey the myriad of ethical issues raised byhuman cloning. There must be time for scholars, religious or culturalleaders and journalists to consider each question in detail, and to preparethe larger public for the changes ahead. Such a period of reflection anddebate may or may not result in the sort of political division associatedwith abortion on demand. It is possible that, with legal status questionsanswered, society will be quite ready to accept cloning of human beings.However, without answers to these legal questions, and with the stillpresent possibility of a visceral negative judgment on the part of manycitizens, it would be foolhardy and unethical to move human cloning closerto reality in the absence of a vibrant public debate. And this is preciselywhat research on livestock cloning will do.

Livestock researchers do not intend that their research should lead tohuman cloning, nor is human cloning a logically necessary implicationof that research. In nations such as the United Kingdom a legal ban onhuman cloning ensures that a public debate will be required to apply live-stock cloning to humans. The situation in the United States is cruciallydifferent. If safe and efficient cloning techniques are developed, physiciansand patients who want to use it have the right to do so. Legal, social andpsychological issues will not be the subject of a public debate, but will bedecided in the courts or by trial and error. I believe that such a situationwould create enormous anxiety, producing conditions for stigmatizationof human clones, and significant social resentment and disorder. This is,admittedly, a speculation, but public debate on human cloning must beginwith speculations, then move toward fact and consensus in the fullness oftime.


Within the United States, livestock cloning advances the likelihood ofhuman cloning without also advancing public understanding of the issues.Few livestock researchers have enjoined the debate that followed theannouncement of Dolly, despite the fact that many have more knowledge ofcloning as such than the frequently quoted biomedical scientists. Perhapsanimal researchers do not see this public debate as within their purview ofresponsibility, but I am arguing that it surely is. The ethical problemdoesnot consist in the way that livestock research accelerates the timetable forhuman cloning, but in the fact that this acceleration is hidden from publicview. Allowing a contentious technology such as human cloning to becomefeasible through technical means alone, without legal, social and ethicalreview, is inconsistent with democratic values. Those who are doing thisresearch have a responsibility to continually advise the public that this dayis drawing near, and to support a vigorous public discussion of social, legaland ethical issues.

REPUGNANCE

There is little doubt that the initial public reaction to the 1997 announce-ment of successful adult mammalian cloning was one of repugnance. ATime/CNN poll supported news reports and editorials that characterizedthe discovery as shocking and revolting. Few researchers close to cloningresearch appear to share this repugnance, however. Cloning may, thus, beoffensive primarily to those ignorant of genetics and reproduction. Thereare, however, two ethical arguments that relate to the public’s reaction ofrepugnance. First, some argue that this is a sufficient reason to opposeall forms of cloning research. Second, a weaker and more focused claimcan be made with respect to food animals. Those who find the technologyrepugnant (for whatever reason) should not be coerced into consumingcloned animals without their knowledge and consent.

Repugnance and Intrinsic Wrong

Leonard Kass’s article “The Wisdom of Repugnance,” is one of the mostwidely read articles on cloning. In it Kass considers and rejects the casefor human cloning on a point by point basis, but his central argument isthat mammalian cloning itself stimulates a repulsive reaction from many,and that this repugnance is sufficient ground to regard cloning as intrinsi-cally wrong. An act is intrinsically wrong if there is in every case somedegree of wrongness associated with it, and a beneficent motive and goodconsequences do not erase that wrongness. In making this case, Kass relies


on a conservative tradition in ethics that harks back to the philosophicalwritings of David Hume, Adam Smith and Edmund Burke. These philos-ophers believed that morality was based on sentiments of sympathy withothers, and that emotional attachments were a key component in any moraljudgement. Hume and Smith sought to systematize moral philosophyconsistent with scientific method, but they took emotional reactions to bepart of the basic data to be systematized. Burke believed that emotionalreactions like repugnance reflect a deep-seated and culturally ingrainedwisdom. All three wrote before Darwin, but their approaches to ethicssuggest an evolutionary argument: whether psychologically or culturallybased, feelings of attachment or revulsion exist because over the long runthey help individuals and social groups prevail against their competitors.Societal stability is the result of respecting these emotional reactions, anddeparture from them entails the risk of upheaval and dissolution. Humewas also the philosopher who argued most forcefully for a logical andconceptual separation between ethics and science.

The suggestion that repugnance represents a kind of wisdom has distin-guished advocates, and deserves respect. However, similar arguments havebeen brought forward to defend racism, slavery and religious oppres-sion. The argument from repugnance thus needs an additional rationale.Kass sketches two themes that, in his view, distinguish our reaction toanimal clones from abusive conservative arguments. First, in defendingabominable practices such as slavery or racial and religious intolerance,conservatives committed themselves to a position that was incompatiblewith basic human rights. That is not the case with respect to human oranimal cloning. No one can currently claim a legal or moral right toutilize a totally unprecedented technology. Second, even if cloning doesnot violate any fundamental human right, neither is itrequired by anyfundamental human rights. It is a practice that society may permit orban without violating any fundamental principles of justice. As such, ourfeelings of repugnance constitute a sufficient reason for banning it.

This argument is fairly persuasive for those inclined to accept itsconservative premises. Three points should be noted in reply. First, Kass’sargument is focused primarily athumancloning, though he finds manyinstances of animal cloning repugnant, as well. However, to the extentthat repugnance to human cloning is what is really at issue, responsesthat weaken the inevitability of human cloning, given research with animalclones, also address Kass’s concern. That is, if a robust public discussionresults in a firm consensus to “draw the line” at the human species, therepugnance that Kass feels can be somewhat alleviated. Second, if thereare morally compelling applications of animal cloning, citing these appli-


cations may be sufficient to overcome immediate reactions of revulsion.If the technology is crucial to certain disease therapies, we might evenbe able to argue for a right to the use of cloning technology on animals,contrary to Kass’s suggestion. Finally, more than any other of the aboveissues, repugnance would appear to be amenable to public discussion. If apublic informed about the technology and its likely applications still foundit repugnant, it would strengthen Kass’s argument. There is no reason,however, to think that this would be the result of an extensive programof education and debate.

Repugnance and Consent

It is well known that culture disposes people to regard some potentialsources of nourishment as non-foods, especially with regard to animals. InIslam and Judaism, foodways are religiously based, but they may equallybe based on customary norms. In the United States, for example, it is clearthat dog, cat, and even horsemeat should not be incorporated into meatproducts for human consumption without clear and explicit information. Ineach of these cases, the repugnance that Americans feel toward consumingsuch products is culturally based, yet is universally regarded as a sufficientreason to ban their use in food products except under stringent conditionsof informed consent. The revulsion felt by the public at large is not scien-tifically based, and will, clearly, vary from place to place and time to time.Nevertheless, existing policy supports an individual right to choose whatone will eat, irrespective of the demonstrated dietary risks and benefits(Thompson, 1997). This suggests that if people regard livestock cloningwith repugnance, that fact establishes a rationale for seeking informedconsent.

The role of informed consent in consumer food choice is complex,and can only be covered in outline form. One philosophical approachnotes that only informed consumers could make appropriate comparisonof the relative value of their food options. On this view, information is aprecondition for efficiency. However, an argument that starts with minorityrights – rights to practice religious rituals and cultural practices, forexample – provides a much stronger basis for insisting that food fromclones be clearly identified. If people are likely to adopt religious or quasi-religious values about the acceptability of eating meat from clones (and theevidence is that they are), then a market structure precluding the expressionof those values violates liberty of conscience. It is, in short, unjust.

The mechanisms for seeking informed consent include but are notlimited to labeling of meats or other food products derived from clones.Any reliable policy of labeling involves costs and economic consequences


that may well outweigh the ethical significance of insuring informedconsent. As such, it is impossible to conclude strongly for labels in theabsence of a more careful analysis of the policy options for protectingconsumer choice and of the relative cost and benefit for each option. Never-theless, the strong presumption in favor of informed consent demandsthe immediate recognition of two responsibilities. First, economists andpolicy analysts should join with livestock scientists in a thorough investi-gation of policy options for making clones available as food products.Second, existing practices that do not segregate cloned animals are ethi-cally unacceptable and should be halted until such time as it is clear thatgeneral repugnance to cloning has disappeared. In addition to being anethical responsibility, segregating cloned animals may also be in the live-stock industry’s best interest. If the public feels that it has been “fooled”into eating an offensive product, a negative impact on public trust of themeat industry is sure to follow.

In concluding this section, two points deserve review. First, the revul-sion felt by many upon learning of cloning experiments is not trivial, but itmay well fade. As such, it provides a reason to go to greater than normallengths to engage the public with this emerging line of scientific research.Second, given the repugnance with which cloning is associated, integratingcloned animals into the human food supply requires informed consent. Anyfood system practice that does not allow individuals who do not want toeat meat or milk from clones to act upon their values at a reasonable costis ethically unacceptable, and ought to be illegal.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, genetic diversity arguments are spurious, while four areas ofethical concern do appear to be relevant to animal cloning. None, however,provides an unambiguous rationale for opposing cloning of livestock. Eachcase appears to involve societal judgments about the constraints on andacceptability of certain livestock practices. The most powerful ethicalconcerns tend to link livestock and human cloning, and to matters ofinformed consent with respect to human consumption of clones for food.With respect to the former issue, the acceptability of livestock cloning turnsin part on establishing a clear barrier between work on livestock and theeventual application of those technologies on humans. With respect to thelatter, acceptability demands a public policy response that acknowledgesthe repugnance with which some regard cloning. In a democracy, buildingbarriers and changing policy require political resolve, and perhaps legisla-tion. As such, the foremost ethical responsibility of reproductive research


is to develop a forum in which rational, informed exchange of informationand point of view can occur (see Thompson, 1999).

Put another way, the most powerful argument against livestock cloningis that under current practice, a potentially acceptable and beneficial tech-nology is foisted upon a wary and untrusting public. It is the foisting thatis wrong in this case, and not the technology itself. Animal researchers canrespond to this situation by doing something that too few bench scientistshave been willing to do. Take time (and if necessary, money) to createsituations where members of the public will become better informed, andwhere you can listen to their concerns.

REFERENCES

Anonymous, “Cloning: Is this the Future for Farm Animals?,”AgScene: The Magazine ofCompassion in World Farming(133) (Spring 1999), 24.

Busch, L., W. Lacy, J. Burkhardt and L. Lacy,Plants, Power and Profits(Basil Blackwell,London and New York, 1992).

Doyle, D., Altered Harvest: Agriculture, Genetics and the Future of the World’s FoodSupply(Viking, New York, 1985).

Kass, L., “The Wisdom of Repugnance,”The New Republic(June 2, 1997), 17–26.Kolata, G.,Clone: The Road to Dolly and the Path Ahead(William Morrow, New York,

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National Bioethics Advisory Commission,Cloning Human Beings: Report of the NationalBioethics Advisory Commission(Rockville, MD, June 1997).

Pence, G.,Who’s Afraid of Human Cloning?(Rowman and Littlefied, Lanham, MD, 1998).Raeburn, P.,The Last Harvest: The Genetic Gamble that Threatens to Destroy American

Agriculture(Simon and Schuster, New York, 1995).Rollin, B., The Frankenstein Syndrome: Ethical and Social Issues in the Genetic

Engineering of Animals(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995).Rollin, B., “Send in the Clones. . . Don’t Bother, They’re Here!,”Journal of Agricultural

and Environmental Ethics10 (1997), 25–40.Scott, J.C.,The Moral Economy of the Peasant(Yale University Press, New Haven, CT,

1976).Sen, A.,Poverty and Famine(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1984).Silver, L.,Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World(Avon Books, New

York, 1997).Thompson, P.,Food Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective(Chapman and Hall, London,

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tions,” in A. Holland and A. Johnson (eds),Animal Biotechnology and Ethics(Chapmanand Hall, London, 1998), pp. 243–264.


Thompson, P., “From a Philosopher’s Perspective: How Should Animal Scientists HandleControversial Issues in Animal Agriculture,”Journal of Animal Science77 (1999), 372–377.

Vavilov, N.I., Origin and Geography of Cultivated Plants(Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 1992).

Wilmut, I., “Methods for Genetic Modification in Farm Animals and Humans: PresentProcedures and Future Opportunities,” in A. Holland and A. Johnson (eds),AnimalBiotechnology and Ethics(Chapman and Hall, London, 1998), pp. 13–26.

Wilmut, I.A.E., J. Schnnicke, A.J. Mewhir Kind and K.H.S. Campbell, “Viable OffspringDerived from Fetal and Adult Mammalian Cells,”Nature385 (1987), 810–813.

Wooliams, J. and I. Wilmut, “New Advances in Cloning and Their Impact on BreedingPrograms,”1998 Meeting Joint Abstracts, Journal of Animal Science76(Supplement 1)(1998), 56.

Department of PhilosophyPurdue UniversityWest Lafayette, IN 47907-1360USAE-mail: [email protected]

ethical issues in livestock cloning

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