第九篇

The Economics of Cloning

(1) Any normal species would be delighted at the prospect of cloning. No more nasty surprises like sickle cell? or Down syndrome? — just batch after batch of high-grade and, genetically speaking, immortal offspring! But representatives of the human species are responding as if someone had proposed adding Satanism to the grade-school Curriculum. Suddenly, perfectly secular? folks are throwing around words like sanctity and picking up medieval-era arguments against the arrogance of science. No one has proposed burning him at the stake, but the poor fellow who induced a human embryo to double itself has virtually abandoned — proclaiming his reverence for human life in a voice, this magazine reported, “ choking with emotion.”

(2) There is an element of hypocrisy to much of the anticloning frenzy, or if not hypocrisy, superstition. The fact is we are already well down the path leading to genetic manipulation of the depressing sort. Life-forms can be patented, which means they can be bought and sold and potentially traded on the commodities markets. Hu-man embryos are life-forms, and there is nothing to stop anyone from marketing them now, on the same shelf with the Cabbage Patch dolls.

(3) In fact, any culture that encourages in vitro fertilization? has no right to complain about a market in em-bryos. The assumption behind the in vitro industry is that some people’s genetic material is worth more than others’ and deserves to be reproduced at any expense. Millions of low-income babies die every year from pre-ventable ills like dysentery?, while heroic efforts go into maintaining yuppie zygotes? in test tubes at the unicel-lular stage. This is the dread “nightmare” of eugenics in familiar, marketplace form — which involves breeding the best-paid instead of the best. Cloning technology is an almost inevitable by-product of in vitro fertilization. Once you decide to go to the trouble of in vitro, with its potentially hazardous megadoses of hormones? for the female partner and various indignities for the male, you might as well make a few backup copies of any viable? embryo that’s produced. And once you’ve got the backup copies, why not keep a few in the freezer, in case Junior ever needs a new kidney or cornea??

(4) No one much likes the idea of thawing out? one of the clone kids to harvest its organs, but according to Andrew Kimbrell, author of The Human Body Shop, in the past few years an estimated 50 to 100 couples have produced babies to provide tissue for an existing child. Plus there is already a thriving market in Third World kidneys and eyes. Is growing your own really so much worse than robbing the bodies of the poor? Or maybe we’ll just clone for the fun of it. If you like a movie scene, you can rewind the tape, so when Junior gets all pimply? and nasty, why not start over with Junior II? Sooner or later, among the in vitro class, instant replay will be considered a human right.

(5) The existential objections ring a bit hollow. How will it feel to be one ______ among hundreds? The anti-cloners ask. Probably no worse than it feels to be the 3 millionth 13-year-old dressed in identical baggy trousers, untied sneakers and baseball cap — a feeling usually described as “cool.” In a mass-consumer society, notions like “precious individuality” are best reserved for the Nike ads.

(6) Besides, if we truly believed in the absolute uniqueness of each individual, there would be none of this unseemly eagerness to reproduce one’s own particular genome. What is it, after all, that drives people to in vitro rather than adoption? Deep down, we don’t want to believe we are each unique, one-time-only events in the universe. We hope to happen again and again. And when the technology arrives for cloning adult individuals, genetic immortality should be within reach of the average multimillionaire. Ross Perot will be followed by a flock of little re-Rosses.

(7) As for the argument that the clones will be sub-people, existing to live up to the vanity of their parents (or their “originals,” as the case may be), since when has it been illegal to use one person as a vehicle for the ambi-tions of another? If we don’t yet breed children for their SAT scores, there is a whole class of people, heavily overlapping with the in vitro class, who coach their kids to get into the nursery schools that offer a fast track to Harvard. You don’t have to have been born in a test tube to be an extension of someone else’s ego.

(8) For that matter, if we get serious about the priceless uniqueness of each individual, many distinguished so-cial practices will have to go. It’s hard to see why people should be able to sell their labor, for example, but not their embryos of eggs. Labor is also made out of the precious stuff of life — energy and cognition? and so forth — which is hardly honored when “unique individuals” by the millions are condemned to mind-killing, repetitive work.

(9) The critics of cloning say we should know what we’re getting into, with all its Orwellian implications. But if we decide to outlaw cloning, we should understand the implications of that. We would be saying in effect that we prefer to leave genetic destiny to the crap shooting? of nature, despite sickle-cell anemia and Tay-Sachs and all the rest, because ultimately we don’t trust the market to regulate life itself. And this may be the hardest thing of all to acknowledge: that it isn’t so much 21st century technology we fear, as what will happen to that tech-nology in the hands of old-fashioned 20th century capitalism.

【參考譯文】: 復制人的經濟分析

(1) 每一個正常的品種，有機會能復制后代，應該都會雀躍不已。從此不再會有鐮狀細胞或唐氏癥候群等惱人的意外，只有一批批高品質的后代，從基因傳承來看甚至是一種永生！可是人類這個品種的一些成員對這項訊息的反應，就好像聽到有人提議把撒旦崇拜列入小學課程一樣。完全沒有宗教信仰的人，突然間滿口都是“神圣”之類的字眼，而且重拾中古時代的論調來批評科學的狂妄。那位可憐的科學家，促使人類胚胎復制成功，現在雖然還沒有人說要把他綁在樁子上燒死，他已經等于在懺悔了——公開宣稱他崇敬生命，講話時的聲音據本刊報道是“激動得哽咽�！�

(2) 這陣反對復制胚胎的喧嘩，夾雜虛偽的成分在內——如果不是虛偽，也有迷信的成分。事實上，我們已經走到非常接近令人毛骨悚然的基因操控技術了。生命形態(tài)已經可以申請專利，這代表可以買賣，將來也可能在商品市場上交易。人類胚胎也是生命形態(tài)�，F在有人要拿它來行銷也沒有法律可以禁止——可以和菜田洋娃娃擺在同一個架子上賣。

(3) 坦白說，一種文化，假如鼓勵試管嬰兒業(yè)，就沒有資格抱怨胚胎市場的出現。試管嬰兒業(yè)背后有一個假設：有些人的基因比別人的基因有價值，值得不計成本來保存、延續(xù)。每年有幾百萬個生在低收入家庭的嬰兒死于不難預防的疾病，如痢疾。但是雅皮階層的受精卵，還在單細胞階段，在試管中就受到呵護，耗費了龐大的人力物力。這種情況，是優(yōu)生學可怕的“夢魘”以熟悉的市場形態(tài)出現——培育的不是比較優(yōu)秀的品種，而是收入比較高的品種。胚胎復制技術可說是試管嬰兒技術無可避免的副產品。一旦你決定不畏試管嬰兒術的麻煩——女性要施以超高劑量的荷爾蒙，可能會有危險，男性在各方面也有失尊嚴——那么好不容易制造出來的健康胚胎自然會想要備上幾份。有了備份，那么何不冷凍一些起來，以防將來小寶寶萬一需要個新腎臟或眼角膜？

(4) 把復制孩童解凍來摘取器官，這個想法沒有人很喜歡。可是《人體商店》的作者金柏瑞爾說，過去幾年來估計有50到100對夫婦為了讓現有的小孩得到人體組織而再生小孩。此外，第三世界國家的腎臟、眼睛等早就有活躍的市場。自己去養(yǎng)來用，比起劫掠窮人的身體，真的會惡劣得多嗎？或者我們只為了好玩來復制吧。電影的精彩片段看不過癮可以倒帶回來重看。那么，到小寶寶長得滿臉疙瘩，討人嫌的時候，不妨換個小寶寶重來一次吧？早晚的事，試管嬰兒族會把“瞬間重播”視為他們的人權。

(5)存在主義式反對復制的論調聽來不甚實在。這派反對者質問：你要是幾百個復制人之中的一個，你會覺得怎樣？這個感覺大概也不會太差，就像在300萬個13歲的孩子之中，穿著一樣的松垮垮的長褲、沒綁鞋帶的球鞋和同款的棒球帽——通常叫做“酷”的感覺。在這個大眾消費形態(tài)的社會中，所謂“寶貴的個人特色”之類的觀念，還是留給耐克球鞋做廣告吧。

(6)況且，如果我們真的都相信每個人是絕對獨特的，根本不會有人那么猴急的要去繁衍自己那一套基因組。追根究底，是什么因素讓人不愿領養(yǎng)，要借助試管嬰兒技術？因為在內心深處，我們不愿相信個人是獨特的，在宇宙中只能發(fā)生一次，我們想要一再的發(fā)生。有朝一日，復制成年人的技術成熟了，基因的永生只要是大富豪就能購買。裴洛走了之后，會有一大群小復制品出現。

(7) 也有人說復制人會成為半人，只為了滿足父母（也可能是“原版”，看情形）的虛榮心而存在。可是，利用別人來實現自己的野心，一向都不犯法�，F在誠然還沒有人針對學術性向測驗去繁殖新品種的小孩，可是已經有一整群人，成員和試管嬰兒族多有重疊，訓練他們還在學步的子女進明星托兒所，以便一路直升哈佛。不在試管里出生也可以成為別人自我的延伸。

(8)說起來，如果我們真正重視每個人寶貴的獨特性，那么許多歷史悠久的社會習俗也都要廢棄才行。例如，不能出賣胚胎、出賣卵子，為什么可以出賣勞力？勞力也是由珍貴的生命要素構成的——精力、認知能力等等。數以百萬計的“獨特的個人”注定要一輩子從事反復的、磨滅心智的勞動，這算是珍重生命嗎？

(9)批評復制胚胎的人說我們要了解面對的是什么，要清楚它含有的奧威爾式的暗示�？墒侨绻�我們決定禁止復制胚胎，同樣也要清楚此舉的暗示涵義。禁止使用這種技術，等于表示我們寧愿把基因的命運留在大自然的手中，好像擲骰子一樣。雖然可能發(fā)生鐮狀細胞貧血癥、泰薩氏癥等各種各樣基因病變也甘冒風險，因為我們骨子里并不放心讓市場來調節(jié)生命演進。這可能是比較不容易承認的一點：我們怕的主要不是21世紀的科技，而是怕把這個科技交到舊式的20世紀資本主義手中，會引發(fā)什么后果。