Genetically Engineering Human-Animal Chimeras and Lives Worth Living

BETWEEN THE SPECIES Issue VIII August 2008 cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ Genetically Engineering Human-Animal Chimeras and Lives Worth Living D.R. Cooley Associate Director of the Northern Plains Ethics Institute Associate Professor of Philosophy and Ethics Department of History 402 Minard Hall North Dakota State University Fargo, ND 58105-5075 [701] 231-7038 Abstract Genetic engineering often generates fear of out of control scientists creating Frankenstein creatures that will terrorize the general populace, especially in the cases of human-animal chimeras. While sometimes an accurate characterization of some researchers, this belief is often the result of repugnance for new technology rather than being rationally justified. To facilitate thoughtful discussion the moral issues raised by human-animal chimeras, ethicists and other stakeholders must develop a rational ethical framework before raw emotion has a chance of becoming the dominating justification for public opinion and policy. Derek Parfit’s work on lives worth living for human beings can provide valuable insight into the morality of creating chimeras. As long as their lives are overall good, then bringing them into existence does not harm them even if they are used for medical research or procedures, or they are created to carry on the homo sapiens’ “family” line. Between the Species, VIII, August 2008, cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ 1 Introduction As the genetic engineering of human-animal chimeras forges new boundaries, more questions about its moral permissibility will arise. Transgenic animals, including chimeras, are created by three different methods: DNA microinjection, retrovirus-mediated gene transfer, and embryonic stem cell-medicated gene transfer. (Margawati 2003) The first method involves the injection of genetic material (a transgene) from one organism into the fertilized ovum of another. (Buy 1997) The resulting organism has the transgene in every one of its cells, thereby making all its cells genetically dissimilar from the two genetic sources. With retrovirus-mediated gene transfer, a retrovirus is used as a vector to transfer genetic material into the host cell. For embryonic stem cell-mediated gene transfer, embryonic stem (ES) cells are introduced into an embryo at the blastocyst development stage. (Buy 1997) These two methods create transgenic animals that are also chimeras, i.e. entities that have cells that are unique to at least two different organisms. The geep, for example, has two cell types, one from a sheep and one from a goat. (Fehilly, et al. 1984, pp. 634-6) Whichever method is used, it is clear that each resultant entity’s personal identity is inseparably bound to the time, genetic material, and environment in which it is formed and grows. Therefore, they seem ideal candidates for Parfit’s life worth living argument. In this paper, an argument for why it is morally permissible to create human-animal chimeras to be used for organ transplants, medical procedures, such as pre-clinical testing, research into understanding why transplanted cells localize and differentiate in a host, and for other benefits to human beings will be developed. (National Academies 2005, p. 49) Next, the same conclusion can be drawn even when researchers intentionally create chimeras capable of holding the status of actual or potential human persons. As long as they have lives worth living or good lives, one cannot say legitimately neither that their creation and existence injured them in some way nor that their existence are inherently bad. In fact, there is a good argument that Between the Species, VIII, August 2008, cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ 2 researchers are obligated to create those chimeras that serve human needs or continue the “family” line when homo sapiens cannot. Section 1: Human lives worth living In Reasons and Persons, Parfit posits a powerful argument that bringing someone into existence can be a benefit to the individual as long as he has a life worth living. Parfit believes that: An act benefits someone if its consequence is that someone is benefited more. An act harms someone if its consequence is that someone is harmed more. The act that benefits people most is the act whose consequence is that people are benefited most. (Parfit 1992, p. 69). Parfit’s notion of benefit is not the one most used in ordinary discourse. First, remote effects are included in an action’s utility calculus as long as the action is necessary to the benefit being received (Parfit 1992, p. 69). Second, Parfit’s benefit notion provides a better way to measure positive gains. For example, the benefit of one action should be compared to the benefits accrued through alternative acts to determine if an agent is actually benefitted by the original action. Suppose that an agent, A, has to select between two actions; one will benefit person B, while the second will benefit person C. Furthermore, suppose that if person B is not benefitted by A, another individual will intervene to give B the same benefit A would have given him. If A does not give C a benefit, then C will not receive a benefit from anyone. For Parfit, A can benefit C, but he cannot benefit B. B’s outcome would have been the same regardless of what A does, but A can positively affect C in a way that C would not have otherwise have been rewarded. Human-animal chimeras, even if their lives end relatively quickly in comparison to either species from which they come, can have lives worth living. Between the Species, VIII, August 2008, cla.calpoly.edu/bts/ 3 Causing someone to exist is a special case because the alternative would not have been worse for this person…for this reason, causing someone to exist cannot be better for this person. But it may be good for this person. (Parfit 1992, p. 489) If we merely consider the alternatives of existence and non-existence, then existence itself cannot be a benefit for anything that exists. The alternative to existence is not to exist, which cannot harm any being for there is no being to injure. Thus, mere existence is not a benefit because there is no alternative in which the person would not have received the benefit. On the other hand, if a person has a good life in which his overall life is more valuable than it is disvaluable, then the person is benefitted; if it is bad, then he is harmed. For those with good lives, it is morally better for him to exist than not to exist. (Parfit 1992, p. 391) Besides being capable of a life worth living, a person’s existence as a whole can be compared to other people’s lives or an ideal life for him. Some people have lives that are barely worth living, while others have existences far exceeding the minimal level. (Parfit 1992, p. 489) If a person has a life barely worth living, then he has been benefited, but a person with a life well worth living is benefited much more than the former. In Parfit’s Risky Policy case, for example, because of a decision we make about immediate social policy (...truncated)