While the U.S. Senate continues to debate the merits of human cloning, the topic hit closer to home Tuesday night in a debate at Norris University Center featuring two Northwestern professors and four students.
Philosophy Prof. Mark Sheldon and neurobiology and physiology Prof. Michael Kennedy led the event, the second in this year’s Great Debates series sponsored by the Owen L. Coon Foundation.
Sheldon, along with Weinberg junior Aditya Chawla and Weinberg sophomore Kunal Karmali, argued that human cloning should be allowed, while Kennedy and Weinberg juniors Katie Good and Marco Russo disagreed.
The students offered the core arguments for their sides, while the professors provided opening and closing remarks.
Debate centered mainly on the importance of sexual reproduction in humans and the social repercussions of legalizing human cloning.
Good, who spoke in opposition to cloning, focused on the idea that sexual reproduction is an inalienable human right. Cloning creates offspring incapable of reproducing, which goes against the basic notion of humanity, she said.
Russo continued this argument by discussing the family issues that would arise with a human clone.
“It would present an unprecedented arrangement of family relationships,” said Russo, who cited the fact that cloned children might feel pressured to live up to their genetically and physically identical father or mother.
Both Good and Russo also explored the safety and ethics of experimenting with human life.
On the other side of the debate, Sheldon’s team said that whether the offspring was sexual or asexual, it was still a child — something desired by both parents.
“Although this method is new, it is nonetheless effective,” said Karmali, adding that disregarding human cloning would “sterilize a significant ability to grow as a society.”
Chawla explored whether a cloned child can consent to being cloned, an issue that is often cited in debates over abortion or stem cell research. Chawla said he believed that “no child consents to being born, whether sexually or by cloning.”
In his closing remarks, Kennedy focused on the safety of human cloning by comparing the practice to In Vitro Fertilization, or IVF, which was a hotly debated topic in the late 1980s.
“There is no data yet on the safety of IVF, despite widespread popular belief that the practice is safe,” Kennedy said.
Sheldon closed his argument by reiterating that a cloned child still would be loved by its family.
“Parental love is, idealistically, unconditional love,” said Sheldon. He added that he thinks the government should not interfere with parents’ desire to have children, regardless of the method used.
Evanston resident Joe Sauris said he enjoyed the debate but was hoping for a more scientific discussion.
“They addressed the philosophical and political issues, but I wished they would have focused on the scientific issues, especially with a biologist on the panel,” Sauris said.
While the debate came to no definitive conclusion, Omar Arain said he heard original thoughts presented.
“It brought to light new arguments, like the idea of the right to having genetic uniqueness and the idea that the embryo has a right,” said Arain, a Weinberg freshman.
Kennedy and other NU professors will continue the cloning debate in the Coon Forum on Saturday, May 3.
