Cloning/Bioethics Questions (originally generated for Biol 108, Spring 2000) Laurel F. Appel, Wesleyan University

As of today, what are your opinions on the following?

1. Should Human Cloning be:

Y N Banned forever

Y N Banned until people have a chance to consider all the implications

Y N Regulated

Y N Funded by the government

What do you mean by Human Cloning?

2. If human cloning is to be regulated, who should do the regulating?

Who do you think is sufficiently:	Knowledgeable?	Ethical?	Trustable?
Congress?	Y N	Y N	Y N
The medical community?	Y N	Y N	Y N
The scientific research community -- University-based?	Y N	Y N	Y N
The scientific research community -- Private?	Y N	Y N	Y N
Infertility clinics?	Y N	Y N	Y N
The marketplace?	Y N	Y N	Y N

Conclusion: human cloning should be regulated by:________________

In the absence of other action, what do you think currently regulates it?______________

Now, some specifics.

3. Cell separation. It is possible to separate the cells of a mammalian embryo during the first few divisions. The separated cells (blastomeres), if implanted into a uterus, can each then go on to become a complete, healthy individual. This technique has been used to increase numbers of offspring of valuable cattle. It also allows for genetic testing of an embryo -- the testing destroys a single cell, but the rest of the embryo can then be implanted.

Under what circumstances should this sort of cell separation be permitted for humans?

Y N to make twin babies?

Y N to increase chances of successful in vitro fertilization (IVF)?

Y N to allow genetic testing for a disease condition for which this embryo is known to be at risk?

Y N to allow genetic testing for general conditions, to predict health, looks, and disposition of offspring?

Y N to allow parents the chance to save one of the cells for use later, for a new pregnancy?

Other cases under which you would permit it?

4. Embryonic stem cells (ES cells) show great promise for the treatment of many human diseases. These cells have the potential to form any tissue of the body, and previous research by developmental biologists gives us ideas on how we could guide these cells to make only the specific cell types needed, such as neurons for patients with Parkinsons Disease, or new insulin secreting cells for diabetics. Creating ES cells required creating a human embryo, then, by removing the ES cells, preventing that early embryo from having the chance to develop into a fetus and beyond. Should human ES cell research be:

Banned -- it required murdering that original embryo (Circle one)

Allowed -- it shows great promise for treatment

If it is allowed, should it be done in:

Y N Federally funded & regulated laboratories?

Y N Private companies?

Y N other? (which?__________)

5. The ES cell question is essentially the abortion question. Under what conditions do you find abortion (temination of pregnancy) acceptable?

Y N None.

Y N Until implantation in the uterus (6 days after fertilization).

Y N Until quickening (when the woman first feels movement, about 18 weeks after fertilization)

Y N Until viability (the stage when the fetus could survive outside a uterus, about 24 weeks)

Y N Whenever in the pregnancy the pregnant woman chooses to do so.

Y N Only if the woman's health is at risk.

What if the fetus has genetical or developmental problems? (Will have serious disease or birth defects)

Y N No difference from above.

Y N This is different, I would_________

6. What do you think about the various kinds of contraception available? Rank each from 1 to 10, with

1 being entirely acceptable, 5 being some qualms, 10 being unacceptable for use by anyone.

__ Condoms

__ Birth Control Pills

__ Morning After Pills (Emergency Contraception)

__ Long term hormones (Depo Provera or Norplant)

__ IUDs

__ Male Sterilization

__ Female Sterilization

__ Chemical abortion (RU-486 or methotrexate)

__ Surgical abortion (D&C)

Assisted Reproductive Technologies

7. What do you think about the use of Assisted Reproductive Technologies for otherwise infertile couples? (in vitro fertilization (IVF), and its cousins, GIFT, ICSY, AID, etc.)

Generally: a good thing a bad thing (Circle one)

Why?

8. What do you think the status of "extra embryos" from IVF, which are created by fertilization of a woman's eggs by her husband's sperm, but not put back into a woman to implant. They are often an unavoidable part of the IVF process, and can be kept frozen indefinitely. Should they be:

Y N Saved forever?

Y N Destroyed after a certain number of years? How many?

Y N Destroyed after both parents (sources of egg and sperm) die?

Y N Given a funeral and buried?

Y N Donated to other infertile couples?

Y N Made available for research on infertility?

Y N Made available for general research on human development and disease?

Y N Should this decisions be left entirely up to the couple whose gametes were used?

9. Generating donors? A couple is given the sad news that their two-year old son has leukemia, and will die before the age of 7 unless he has a bone marrow transplant within the next three years. No compatible donor can be located. The couple decides to have a second child, in the hopes that the younger sibling will be able to donate some bone marrow (source of new blood cells) to save the brother.

Y N Is this ethically acceptable to you, if they are prepared to raise and love a second child, whether it can donate or not?

Y N Would you find it acceptable if the couple wants to have the fetus tested in utero, so they can abort if it is not compatible, and try again?

Y N Would you find it acceptable for them to instead clone the first child -- to put a nucleus from the first child's skin cell into an egg of the mother, from which the egg's DNA had been removed, and then put this back into the mother to grow and be born and raised as a second son?

Y N Would you find it acceptable for them to have ES cells made from the first son, using the mother's egg, without creating a full second son, so these cell could be directed to make new bone marrow?

10. If genetic technology advanced to the point where a single gene could be added to your offspring that would make it immune to the HIV virus and certain cancers, how much would you be willing to pay to have it done?

Y N $30

Y N $300

Y N $3000

Y N $30,000

Y N Would not want it done to my child.

Y N If rich families could afford it, should the government subsidize poor families so they could have this benefit, too?

Parenthood in the new millenium.

11. Is there a right to become a parent? Should there be?

12. Should single people be allowed to:

Y N adopt?

Y N use high-tech assistance to beome parents?

Y N use willing adults to help them become parents (sperm or egg donors)?

Y N Should the resources of the single person be taken into consideration in these decisions?

Y N Should the lifestyle of the single person be taken into consideration in these decisions?

13. Should gay and lesbian couples be allowed to:

Y N adopt?

Y N use high-tech assistance to beome parents?

Y N use willing adults to help them become parents (sperm or egg donors)?

Y N both be granted full parental rights to a biological child of one of them, if the other biological parent agrees?

14. Do you think it is acceptable:

Y N for an infertile couple to pay another woman to gestate their fertilized egg in her uterus?

Y N for the gestating woman to agree to do so?

Y N for the gestating woman to accept money for doing so?

Y N for a fertile woman to donate some of her eggs so an infertile couple can use them?

Y N for an infertile couple to pay the egg donor for her services?

15. Do you think it is acceptable:

Y N for an infertile couple to make an embryo by transferring a nucleus from one of their own cells to the woman's enucleated egg, and allowing it to implant and develop in her uterus, if that is the only way they could become parents of a biologically related child? (This is nuclear transfer from somatic cells: how Dolly was made.)

Y N Would your answer change if the parent-to-be was the sole surviving member of a family destroyed by genocide?

Y N Should it?

16. Family secrets. (We all have them.)

Y N Would it bother you to discover that your best friend was a clone?

Y N Would it bother you to discover that your best friend was a test-tube baby?

Y N Would it bother you to discover that you were a test-tube baby?

Y N Would it bother you to discover that your best friend was a twin?

Y N Would it bother you to discover that you had an extra sibling who had been adopted by others before you were born?

Y N Would you feel differently if that sibling were your twin? In what way?

17. The flip side of The Quest for the Perfect Baby.

A couple is told that the much-wanted baby they have just delivered is seriously and multiply handicapped. It will never be fully healthy, but to survive at all it requires immediate surgery to correct a heart defect.

Who should decide whether the baby has the surgery?

Y N The couple?

Y N The hospital's ethics board?

Y N The government?

What should be taken into consideration in making the decision?

18. If the problem with the fetus had been discovered much earlier in gestation,

Y N Would it be ok to abort it?

Y N Would it be preferable to abort it?

Y N If a test was available, should the parents have used it to know in advance, to have the chance to abort?

Y N Should the presence of other young children in the family, and their needs, affect this decision?