There is good reason for public confusion, for the meaning of the word
“clone” has shifted several times since it was introduced more than 90 years
ago. And whereas changes in the meaning of ordinary words are initiated by the
public and will be understood by them, new definitions of scientific terms are
unlikely to trickle down to the majority of the population.

At the turn of the century, Herbert Webber of the US Department of
Agriculture was searching for a suitable term for plants that are propagated
vegetatively by buds, grafts, cuttings, runners, bulbs, corms and the
like—such plants are not unique but are simply transplanted parts of the
same individual. He wanted a word that was short, euphonic and different from
any other in use, so as to allow only one precise meaning. He suggested the term
“clon” (Science, vol 18, p501), which was later amended to clone. The
word was applied to the varieties of apples, strawberries and other crops that
are descended by vegetative reproduction from a single ancestral plant, and
distinguished from plants such as wheat and corn that are grown from seed.

But in their recent consultation document Cloning Issues in Reproduction,
Science and Medicine, Britain’s Human Genetics Advisory Commission and the
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority define cloning as “copying and
propagation without altering the nuclear genome”. The new definition embodies
some subtle changes from the original. How did they come about?

The term “clone” and its derivatives were too useful to be left to
horticulturists, and eventually scientists from other disciplines laid claim to
them. By the 1950s, cell culture studies and genetics had come to the fore, and
in 1958 the British biologist Honor Fell wrote about “clonal cultures” grown
from single cells (New ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, vol 3, p 12). And in the same year,
the Australian immunologist Frank Macfarlane Burnet published an influential
book entitled The Clonal Selection Theory of Acquired Immunity.

At the same time, American biologists Robert Briggs and Thomas King, in
Philadelphia, pioneered the removal of nuclei from frog eggs and their
replacement with nuclei of embryo frogs. They used the term “nuclear clones” to
describe a group of embryos originating from different nuclei of an early
embryo, all of which would be expected to have the same genetic constitution.
Twenty years on, another member of the group, Robert McKinnell, wrote two
books—Cloning: Nuclear Transplantation in Amphibia and
Cloning: A Biologist Reports. The latter was intended for the general
public and contains the statement that the procedure of nuclear transplantation
permits the asexual reproduction of amphibians—frogs, toads and
salamanders—and that the procedure “is widely referred to as cloning”.

However, by the 1970s, cell biologists knew that genetic material is not
confined to the cell nucleus, because a small amount of DNA is also present in
the mitochondria in the cytoplasm. Therefore, the process of nuclear
transplantation, or nuclear transfer, does not result in total genetic identity.
It is also questionable whether nuclear transfer is a truly asexual process,
since it requires a recipient egg, which is certainly not an asexual cell; and,
of course, in mammals, the “cloned” embryo needs to develop inside the uterus of
a woman. There, if development is successful, it will grow into a new organism,
which would be neither an extension nor a reincarnation of any person or pet
dog.

It is too late to turn back the clock of terminology, but it is clear that
the word “clone” has undergone its own evolution and today means something quite
different from what was originally intended.

Of all methods of assisted reproduction, surrogacy attracts the widest
opposition. When things go wrong, they hit the headlines, and then there are
calls to make the process illegal. To stem public disquiet in Britain, the
government has set up a committee to investigate all aspects of surrogacy,
including the question of payment.

A recent British surrogacy arrangement that came apart involved a Dutch
couple. All went well at first, but then the future surrogate mother fell out
with the proposed adoptive parents and an announcement appeared that she had
aborted the fetus. A few days later came a second announcement to the effect
that she had lied about the abortion, but had decided to keep the child.
Inevitably, the couple who had been looking forward to the baby were
heartbroken.

It is not obvious, though, why this case, and others like it, should be a
reason for any change in the law. Many marriages go wrong, and some even end in
murder, but this does not usually result in demands for marriage to be made
illegal.

Another puzzling aspect of the surrogacy issue is the view held by the great
and the good that surrogate mothers should not receive payment for their
services, other than, at most, modest expenses. Payment, it is thought, would
detract from her generosity and altogether cast doubt on her reliability and
motives.

It is worth noting that no such restrictions are placed on the obstetrician
in the team, whose motives or reliability are not treated as suspect if he or
she receives a high income. But there seems to be a widely held opinion that a
woman agreeing to be a surrogate mother is expected to undergo nine months of
pregnancy, preceded by lengthy negotiations and physical interference, followed
by childbirth and handing over the baby—and all for pocket money.

If this were the law, and if surrogacy contracts cannot be enforced, there
could be a strong temptation for a woman to supplement her income, and she
hardly needs to be a financial whiz kid to realise that she can earn a lot more
money by selling her story to the media than by fulfilling the arrangement into
which she has entered

Surrogacy is often denounced as an exploitation of the surrogate mother, but
the idea that the exploitation is increased if she receives payment is surely
paradoxical. One likely reason for this view is that most surrogate mothers
belong to the “economically disadvantaged classes”, and it is arguably a case of
exploitation if a woman is driven to use her womb to escape from a state of
poverty. It is obvious, though, that surrogacy bears no responsibility for our
social system, and value judgments of exploitation by the commissioning parents
are misplaced.

There are, of course, no fail-safe strategies, but it would help to vet all
individuals concerned in surrogate arrangements to have properly drafted
contracts with a clause preventing either side from talking to the media.
Sensationalising such private affairs is bound to distort the truth and is not
in the public interest.

The issue of the surrogate mother has a historical parallel with the wet
nurse, who from antiquity until modern times played an important part in feeding
the infants of mothers who either could not, or would not, breast-feed their
own.

Valerie Fildes, in Breasts, Bottles and Babies, tells us that during
the 17th century Puritan theologians devoted sermons and large tracts of popular
conduct books to the evils of mothers who did not breast-feed. But the
disappearance of the wet nurse was due neither to preachers nor the law. It came
about through scientific discoveries about infant feeding during the 19th
century, followed by the commercial availability of baby milk formulas.

Gestation now seems to be the only part of human reproduction which cannot
yet be done in the laboratory. However, three-quarters of a century ago, the
British biologist J. B. S. Haldane foresaw the development of babies outside the
womb and named the process ectogenesis. In his fantasy of the future
Daedalus, or Science and the Future, published in 1923, he wrote: “It was
in 1951 that Dupont and Schwartz produced the first ectogenetic child…[They]
obtained a fresh ovary from a woman who was the victim of an aeroplane accident,
and kept it living in their medium for five years. They obtained several eggs
from it and fertilised them successfully, but the problem of nutrition and
support of the embryo was more difficult, and was only solved in the fourth
˛âąđ˛š°ů.”

Aldous Huxley elaborated this idea in Brave New World, published in
1932, in which he gives a vivid description of the Central London Hatchery,
where eggs and sperm are stored in test tubes. After in vitro fertilisation, the
embryos undergo a series of scientific treatments until they have developed to a
stage equivalent to that at birth. Viviparity, at least for women, has become a
thing of the past.

Some scientific forecasts become reality, others do not. In the real world,
in vitro fertilisation has become an option, but the development of the fetus
remains basically an old-world phenomenon. The improvements in keeping premature
babies alive merely emphasise the difficulties posed by life outside the womb
even for fetuses that have pretty nearly completed their development. If
ectogenesis were feasible, surrogate mothers would no longer be necessary. In
reality, however, the womb will remain an essential organ for human reproduction
for the foreseeable future. It deserves a more rational approach than it is
presently accorded.

Byrke is a biologist who loves animals, especially dogs and horses. In the past, she researched animal behaviour, but later she developed doubts about the ethics of keeping animals in the laboratory. Her doubts were reinforced by her involvement with feminist groups, and the majority of the 200 or so references in this book are to recent feminist publications.

Women and animals, we are told, are fellow sufferers. Both groups have been tamed, broken in, domesticated. Women, like animals, have traditionally been excluded from cultural history, and so it seems only right that when women try to remedy the injustices done to themselves, they should also include other oppressed categories such as animals.

The “shrew” of the subtitle is intended to show that women are often called by animal names as a mark of disrespect. The problem with this idea, however, is that it can easily be countered by the fact that men, too, are called by animal names, such as “ass”, “dog”, “cur” and so on, and the claim that women are singled out for insults lacks conviction.

The assertion that concern for animals is a particularly feminine characteristic seems equally dubious. Among vegetarians, the names Hitler, Bernard Shaw and Isaac Bashevis Singer immediately spring to mind; and many men are active in the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other organisations concerned with animal welfare.

A major problem with the idea of “animal rights” is the inclusiveness of the term “animals”. Fleas are animals just as much as cats, and what about the Anopheles mosquito and the malaria parasite which it carries, a protozoan belonging to the genus Plasmodium? Do all these “animals” have equal rights to our protection? Obviously not, but this means that the animal kingdom needs to be subdivided into a hierarchical system, the members of which are treated differently.

Turning to the subject of animals in scientific research, it is a fact that fleas are not organisms universally suitable for experiments, and that mammals are necessary for many purposes at the present time. One would have thought, therefore, that it is a matter for satisfaction that the majority of animals used for experiments are mice and rats – not because they are “nastier” than cats, dogs and primates, but because all available evidence suggests that rodents are less intelligent and suffer less under laboratory conditions. The fact that these animals are specially bred for the laboratory seems an additional justification for their use in the advancement of science. Strict regulations for the maintenance of laboratory animals are now laid down in Britain and other countries, and it is right that this should be subject to constant review. Whether there are any species, such as chimpanzees, which should never be used for research, could be debated.

The oft-repeated allegation that alienation from the rest of the animal world is somehow linked to Western culture is surely without foundation. In Korea, dogs are kept in cages in the kitchen until they are required for the pot. Rhinoceroses are threatened with extinction because their horns are regarded as an aphrodisiac by local populations, and the same threat hangs over other animals because various parts of their bodies are thought to provide cures for sundry illnesses. Researchers are now not only in a position to produce new drugs, but the scientific method, including the use of controls and statistical analysis, can sort out the effective drugs from those that are ineffective.

Of course, drugs are not the only method for achieving health, but they play an important part, and their use is preferable to being treated with the ground-up bones of tigers. There can be little doubt that if scientific methodology were discontinued, the result would be an increase in superstitions and phobias, to the detriment of human and animal alike.

This is not to imply that scientific enterprise as currently practised is conducted in the best possible way. Exaggerated claims are frequently made and end up by being counterproductive, casting doubt on the entire edifice. For example, the argument that by mapping all human genes the development and ultimate characteristics of a person will be understood can easily be demolished by a consideration of discordance in “identical” twins. A pair of such twins has all genes in common, yet if one twin is born with a cleft lip, the other has more than an even chance of having a normal lip; and if genes don’t have the last word about the way our lips develop, how can they “determine” the more subtle variations that people manifest in their different lifestyles? Byrke voices some real concerns, but her lack of rationality in tackling them is unlikely to convince any but already converted readers.

The author of The Lancet letter, Sue Jennings, was called upon to counsel
a woman who wanted to have a child without sexual intercourse, and who therefore
asked to be artificially inseminated. The pros and cons of approving this
request may be a subject for debate. Biologically, however, the syndrome
is nonexistent: any insemination that gives rise to fertilised eggs does
not result in virgin birth.

The scientific term for virgin birth is ‘parthenogenesis’, which may
be defined as the development of an egg into an embryo without the participation
of a sperm. The embryo so formed may or may not survive to birth or hatching.
The rule that eggs lie dormant and soon die unless activated by a sperm
has quite a few exceptions, and so partheno-genesis is by no means uncommon
in the animal kingdom.

Greenfly are just one example. During the summer months the population
on the rose bushes consists entirely of females, producing brood after brood
of all-female offspring, with numerical results that are all too well known.
Males appear only in the autumn, and fertilised females lay eggs which overwinter
and give rise to more female greenfly in the spring. Bees also lay unfertilised
eggs, but these give rise only to males, or drones, while female workers
and queen bees arise from fertilised eggs. If bees and greenfly can reproduce
without males, could it also happen in human beings?

Back in 1955, Helen Spurway, a geneticist at University College London,
thought that this was quite likely. She had bred a small colony of guppies,
a species of live-bearing aquarium fish, in which, apparently virgin females
were giving birth to young fish in the complete absence of males; and this
prompted her to speculate on the human situation.

One oddity about the claims to virgin birth in humans is that it almost
always results in males, and this, she thought, may be one of the greatest
indictments of the subjection of women. If virgin birth were to occur in
our species, it would in the large majority of cases result in female children,
since a male needs a Y chromosome which he inherits from his father.

Spurway’s suggestion that emancipated women who thought that they had
a child by virgin birth could be vindicated by genetic tests prompted a
Sunday newspaper to print an article asking mothers who thought that they
had such a child to come forward: the article added that such children should
be girls. As a result, 19 pairs of mothers and daughters were examined by
Dr S. Balfour-Lynn, who published the results in The Lancet in 1956. It
turned out that all 19 claims had to be rejected, many of them on the basis
of blood group incompatibility, but in one case because the mother rejected
a skin graft from the daughter, indicating that the daughter had genes not
present in the mother.

It also emerged that the apparently virgin guppies were not normal females
but contained some testicular tissue. This means that they were true hermaphrodites
– a rare abnormality in guppies – and the offspring arose as a result of
self-fertilisation, a process which is quite different from parthenogenesis.
Many scientists thought that parthenogenesis did not occur in vertebrates,
but this proved not to be so.

In 1958, a Russian zoologist, Ilya Darevsky, published his findings
that certain lizards in Soviet Armenia consisted entirely of females, and
he suggested that the eggs may develop without fertilisation, by parthenogenesis.
This idea was received with much scepticism, but has since been fully vindicated.
Darevsky’s lizards belonged to the genus Lacerta, but all-female lizards
of the genus Cnemidophorus, or whiptail lizards, also occur in parts of
the United States and Mexico. ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s at the American Museum of Natural
History have been able to work out their life history from successive generations
bred in the laboratory. Many such lizards are hybrids and would be unable
to produce offspring by the normal process of sexual reproduction.

Human parthenogenetic development is less successful. Exceptionally,
eggs do develop in the absence of sperm, but instead of forming a fetus,
the end product is a strange form of tumour, known as a dermoid cyst. Such
tumours typically contain hair and teeth. Fortunately they are usually benign
and can be successfully removed.

In mice, unfertilised eggs may be induced to develop into embryos, but
these invariably die. At first this seemed puzzling. Of course, if the embryos
had the wrong chromosome number, their death was to be expected, but it
was less easy to explain why embryos with a correct chromosome constitution
should fail to develop. However, during the last few years a new genetic
phenomenon has been discovered in mice and humans, namely that certain parts
of the genetic material have unequal effects on development, according to
whether they have been transmitted by the father or the mother.

It follows that certain parts of chromosomes must be inherited from
both parents, failing which the resulting development will be abnormal,
often exhibiting growth defects. So if the entire genetic material is derived
from the mother, it is hardly surprising that the resulting embryo is not
viable. Consequently, virgin birth in humans is firmly relegated to the
realm of myth or miracle.

Confronted with the facts, we have to conclude that, while fathers may
be an optional extra in postnatal life, their role in conception remains
unchallenged. Those who worry about people playing God can take comfort
from the fact that the rules He laid down for having children are quite
strict, and although today we know a lot more about them, we cannot really
change them in any fundamental way.

There seems to be no divine rule that restricts the birth of children
to married couples. But women who want to have children without sexual intercourse
should be counselled that virgin birth is not on the menu, and that there
is still a slightly more than even chance that their child will be male.
This could be a problem for some.

The underlying issue is by no means new. The Royal Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals, which received its royal charter exactly 150 years
ago, was originally founded for the protection of horses and farm animals.
In its wake followed the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to
Vivisection and several others, such as The World League against Vivisection.
Our own era of anarchical liberators gave rise to the Animal Liberation
Front, the first animal rights organisation to go in for ‘direct action’.

On the other side of the fence, the Research Defence Society was founded
in 1908 with the specific aims of educating the public about the necessity
of using animals in biological and medical research, as well as the many
benefits that have resulted from such research. It would seem that the society
was singularly unsuccessful in getting these views across. During a recent
debate on television about man’s relationship with animals, a woman in the
audience stated categorically that animal experiments had not resulted in
any medical advances, and she was probably expressing an opinion held by
a not insignificant proportion of the population. As Mark Hatfield, the
executive director of the Research Defence Society, said on another occasion:
‘The public is not well informed on these matters.’ This remark must rate
as the understatement of the decade. The ignorance of the public on scientific
and medical mat ters is indeed abysmal, and a large chunk of the blame must
surely go to the scientists themselves for failing to communicate their
subject in an intelligible and balanced manner.

Animal rights campaigners do not rely on special background knowledge,
and tend to have an easier task in getting their message across. In addition,
animal rights activists armed with petrol bombs and ‘liberating’ animals
from research institutes and fur farms are sure to receive maximum news
coverage. It does seem strange that scientists, who regard themselves as
some of the most intelligent members of Homo sapiens, have not been able
to put forward a better-reasoned case for their activities.

I believe that their argument that animal research has led to important
medical advances in the past, although factually correct, is an invalid
basis for permitting it in the future. Some of the experiments carried out
by Nazi doctors on Jews, gypsies and the mentally handicapped have resulted
in medically useful data, but this does not legitimise these experiments.
They were carried out on a basis of a simple, ad hoc decriminalised, postulate
that the experimental subjects were somehow of a lesser order than the experimenters.
The experiments were obviously unjustifiable, irrespective of the usefulness
or otherwise of the results.

The frequently heard argument that those opposed to animal experiments
would change their minds if this could save the life of their own child
is equally flawed, because in that extreme situation the same argument could
be advanced if ‘Jews’, ‘gypsies’ or ‘the mentally handicapped’ were substituted
in the equation. If animal experiments are to continue, as I believe they
should, scientists must produce more evidence than just medical utility.
They could point out, for example, that in the large majority of experiments
any suffering inflicted is unlikely to be greater than what the animals
would experience in the wild.

Proponents of animal rights do not seem to distinguish between different
types of animals. For instance, in an article in the British Medical Journal
last November (vol 299, p 1238) Peter Singer, Professor of Philosophy and
Director of the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University in Melbourne,
pointed out that about 3.5 million scientific procedures on animals were
undertaken in Britain in 1988. Although that figure was based on Home Office
statistics and therefore factually correct, it seems nonsensical to me not
to differentiate between species. In fact, over half of the experimental
animals were mice and a further 30 per cent rats and other rodents, with
no experiments being carried out on great apes, that is, chimpanzees, gorillas,
and orang-utans.

A comparison between these two groups, great apes and rodents, does
suggest that some degree of specism is justified. The great apes are highly
intelligent animals and must be presumed to be more sensitive to suffering
than are mice. Furthermore, apes are rare and need all the protection they
can get to ensure their survival, while mice are decidedly not. Indeed,
the balance of nature can be maintained only if predators eat the majority
of those born. The idea of animals living happily in the wild contains a
large element of wishful thinking and failure to face facts. On balance,
the advantages of research outweigh the disadvantages stemming from ‘exploitation’.
At the same time, there is no room for complacency, and some reduction in
experiments, particularly with certain species, could well be desirable.
The type of animals used seems far more important than just numbers of experiments.

Taking account of the mentality of different animals also does away
with the argument that, if one accepts the validity of animal rights, one
cannot kill or otherwise disturb any flea, louse or malaria parasite. We
have to accept that some animals are more equal than others, and its corollary,
that some are less equal than others.

Whereas scientific procedures liable to cause pain and suffering to
animals are regulated in Britain by the Animals Act of 1986, farming practices
operate under no such controls. Many aspects of factory farming are abhorrent
and need to be changed, irrespective of whether or not they are responsible
for such tragedies as salmonella poisoning and mad cow disease.

Legislation has its uses, but a greater awareness of our relationship
to animals will ultimately be more effective in convincing people of their
responsibilities. To bring this about, a lot more biology teaching will
be needed. As green issues are coming to the fore, it should be evident
that courses in life science are not just for non-mathematicians, but that,
together with numeracy and literacy, some understanding of the living world
must be part of a basic education.

The Commission of the European Communities is by its own testimony an
equal opportunity employer. Recently, it advertised in New ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ for
translators, who are to be recruited by open competition. True, applicants
can be either male or female, but only if they were born after 8 September
1953. Evidently, if you were born on 7 September of that year, the open
competition is closed to you.

Age limits are certainly not confined to advertisements in New ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´.
According to my daily newspaper, a large international bank is seeking highly
qualified applicants for quite a number of positions, including: financial
controller, age between 25 and 36; international property finance, age between
26 and 36; and corporate finance, age between 30 and 40. The last position
requires ‘perfect English’, which may account for the extra years allowed.

Turning to the appointments section of The Times, I note an opening
for a chief executive, at a salary of Pounds sterling 200 000 plus profit
share plus executive benefits. The requirements for this position do not
seem to include a degree, but the ideal candidate would be in his (her?)
late 30s or early 40s.

The shift in prejudice designed to exclude certain categories of citizens
was brought home to me during a recent visit to Berlin, when I went to see
my old school. The last time I had been there was on 10 November 1938, the
morning after what has since become known as Kristallnacht. I had been called
in to see the headmaster, who told me that he didn’t wish any unpleasant
incidents to occur at school, so would I and my sisters please go home.
A law excluding Jewish children from attending state schools was passed
a few days later.

That law has long since been repealed. Not only that, but my old school
has since been renamed. In my days it was called Staatliche Augustaschule,
after the wife of William I, who became the first emperor of Germany. Now
it has become the Sophie-Scholl Gesamtschule. Sophie Scholl was 12 years
old when Hitler came to power, and grew up to become an active opponent
of Nazism. In 1942, at the age of 21, she was executed for sabotage, disseminating
defeatist ideas, insulting the Fuhrer, and undermining the armed forces.
The school insists that she was basically a normal girl, who had martyrdom
thrust upon her.

The postwar years also witnessed large-scale progress towards the abolition
of sex discrimination. When I entered University College London in 1947,
no woman had ever been a professor. The first woman to achieve this distinction
was the crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale, who became a professor in 1949,
four years after she had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Today,
15 out of 170 or so professors are women, a figure well above the national
average.

While time is a great healer of certain ills, it makes others worse.
Horrifying to relate, I was born before September 1924, and this spells
RETIREMENT and, for most scientists, the likely consequence of losing one’s
lab. An experimental scientist needs a laboratory not only as an environment
to work in, but also as a prerequisite for applying for research grants
to buy the material necessities for experiments. Once again I have been
lucky, since I have been offered research facilities at the London Hospital
Medical College. My research can, therefore, continue.

But is it really sensible that the continuation of productive research
should suddenly become doubtful because of a birthday, rather than eventually
becoming extinguished of its own accord? Apart from being against the interest
of the individual concerned, it can surely not be to the advantage of the
community if an investment in training and experience is not utilised as
long as it can produce results.

While discrimination on account of race and sex is now prohibited by
legislation, age discrimination is alive and well. Indeed, in spite of increasing
life expectation, compulsory retirement from university posts is now earlier
than it used to be. It is often argued that this is necessary in order to
make room for the next generation. It is worth reminding oneself, therefore,
that exactly the same argument was used to discriminate against women and
foreigners, that is, that equal status for these less deserving classes
would cause unemployment for native men.

‘A lady . . . must not work for profit or engage in any occupation that
money can command, lest she invade the rights of the working classes, who
live by their labour.’ This opinion was expressed by a woman a hundred years
ago. Today we should surely be able to recognise that the right to work
should be extended to all who are capable of doing it, regardless of race,
sex and age.

Ursula Mittwoch is professor of genetics at University College London.