“Exactly who are the donors?” Martha asked, her voice becoming more assured.
“Sperm and egg donors, mostly. When they go through the donation process they indicate whether or not they want to make their DNA available for cloning after they pass on. If the answer is yes, they also contribute blood – it’s ironic, but we can’t clone from reproductive cells alone – and are paid about three times as much. If they’re egg donors, the fee could be a multiple of ten.”
“Women donate their DNA less frequently,” Martha said, recalling a fact from her research. “That’s why most cloned children are boys.”
“Correct. Sperm donation is much more common than egg donation, and there are still very few people who donate cells specifically for the purpose of having them cloned. For most donors, it’s an afterthought, a way to make a few extra bucks just for rolling up your sleeve and signing your name on one more line. Some people do it for ego: the thrill of knowing their DNA will live on, something like a quest for immortality, although that’s a lot of nonsense, of course. A lot of people, particularly women, still find the idea of their genetic duplicate to be a little unsettling. An old classmate of mine wrote an article in the New England Journal of Medicine last year claiming some relationship between this phenomenon and female self-image. I don’t know if I believe that, but who knows? There are control issues, too. Regulations. We don’t want people being cloned without their permission. Laws and ethics say we can’t just take nail clippings out of a wastepaper basket and clone a person without his knowledge. And as you’re aware, there have been multiple privacy laws enacted by Congress over the last five years. It’s illegal even to keep a record of someone’s DNA unless they’ve been charged with a serious crime.”
“How does implantation work?” Martha asked. Husbands are never worried about implantation, Davis thought, only extraction.
“When we’re ready to move ahead, we will take one of your eggs and remove the nucleus, leaving us with just a shell. Then we add a cell nucleus from the donor – usually DNA from a white blood cell – and stimulate it to behave as if it were an egg fertilized naturally. After that, the implantation is identical to in vitro.”
“I understand there are more applicants than donors.” For some reason, Martha tried to hide the tiny piece of fringed notebook paper on which she’d written her questions. “If we decide to put our name on the waiting list, how long should we expect before DNA becomes available?”
“Some people will wait three or four years, but it’s not just first come, first served. Martha, you said in your pre-interview that Huntington’s disease runs in your family?”
An impolite question from anyone but a physician. “Yes,” she said. “I had myself tested. I’m a carrier.”
“That makes you a priority candidate. You’d go to the top of the list. Any child you would have through natural conception or through a conventional insemination or in vitro process – that is, a technique that uses your own genetic material – would be at high risk for Huntington’s. The cloned embryo you would receive will be screened for any known hereditary disease, so you could still carry the child without passing on any propensity for illness. In essence, with cloning, you’re adopting a child in the embryonic stage. And while he is not, technically, your natural child, neither is he somebody else’s. From that perspective, I think in vitro cloning is superior to other techniques. There are few gray areas in cloning law. You never have to worry about the natural mother or father showing up one day, demanding their rights to your child.”
“What about the parents of the donor?” Terry asked.
A good question, but a telling one, Davis thought. He’s more interested in potential liability than in the procedure itself. “Well, if they’re still alive, the clone is not their offspring, legally or ethically. He’ll be a different person, with different likes and dislikes. He will have a personality all his own. A soul of his own, if you believe in that sort of thing, which, as I’ve said, I do.”
“You said ‘he.’ ” Martha squinted, like she was preparing for a gust of bad news. “So there’s no chance it might be a girl?”
Davis sucked in a chestful of air. Three times in the last year his answer to this question had been countered with indignant and uninformed lectures on eugenics from angry would-be parents. He was pretty sure at least one of those was a setup, though. The couple showed up on the local news that very same night to register their “shock” about what they learned during their visit to a “clone clinic.”
He said, “As much as we’d like the odds to be roughly the same as they are in nature, about fifty-one percent in favor of girls, the present reality of our donor profiles means you’re more likely to have a boy. Within that framework, Congress says gender selection must be random. We do have some choices, however. While I am limited in what I can tell you about the donor, we do try to match some superficial physical characteristics with the parents. You’re both fair, so we’ll try to find a rough match for hair color. Many people who go through this process don’t want to raise a lot of eyebrows among their friends and neighbors over the provenance of their child.”
The Finns appeared neither surprised nor upset. Terry said, “That’s another question I had. How much of this information is public?”
“Yes. Good. That’s important,” Davis said. “As the parents of a cloned child, you’ll be required to have him checked every six months by a pediatrician, at least until his sixteenth birthday. We have a doctor on staff here, Dr. Burton, and she is excellent, but you won’t be required to use her if you’re more comfortable with someone else. Whomever you choose, however, you will need to notify your child’s pediatrician that he is treating a clone, and that doctor will file regular reports to this office. It’s all for the sake of ongoing research, as well as to safeguard the integrity of the procedure, and it’s all protected by the doctor-patient privilege. By the way, we perform many different kinds of procedures here, and Dr. Burton sees other patients, not just cloned children, so no one will be suspicious if they spot you in her waiting room.”
“What about the child?” Martha asked. “Would we tell him?” She added hopefully, “Him or her.”
“That’s up to you, of course. I think most therapists agree you should wait until they’re in their teens, at least. It’s a lot for a kid to handle, existentially speaking. Of course, in fifteen years, it’s not going to seem as strange or new as it does now.” After a silent moment Davis looked at the clock, but patiently, the way they’d taught him seventeen years ago at the University of Minnesota. “I have another appointment waiting, but do you have any other questions? We can stay here until they’re answered.”
They didn’t. Not at this point. Cloning was still so new. Just to be talking about it in a comfortable, old-fashioned room like this, surrounded by wood paneling and books and maps on the wall – it was weird, like something out of H. G. Wells. Davis intended it that way. Get them accustomed to the idea over time, and over time weed out the ones who aren’t ready. The initial meeting, he always said, was the first of many trials.
He walked them to his office door and then returned to his desk and made notes in a newly created file on his computer. Martha and Terry Finn. High – priority candidates. Wife wants child more than husband does. Will probably return for another consultation, or seek second opinion. Don’t expect to schedule this quarter.