全新版大学英语综合教程课文原文及翻译

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Second Thoughts on Cloning

Laurence H. Tribe



1 Some years ago, long before human cloning became a near-term prospect, I was among those who urged that human cloning be assessed not simply in terms of concrete costs and benefits, but in terms of what the technology might do to the very meaning of human reproduction, child rearing and individuality. I leaned toward prohibition as the safest course. 关于克隆的再考虑 劳伦斯·H·特赖布

几年前，在克隆人还远未成为一种近期前景的时候，我和一些人一起，竭力主张对人类克隆的评判不仅仅要考虑到详细的代价与裨益，而且要考虑到这一技术将会对人类繁殖、孩子的抚养以及对人的个性的真实意义会带来什么影响。我倾向于制止克隆人，认为此乃最为平安可靠的方针。

2 (1) Today, with the prospect of a renewed push for sweeping prohibition rather than mere regulation, I am inclined to say, "Not so fast." 时至今日，眼看着新一轮要求对克隆人全面制止而非简单标准的呼声即将再起，我倒想说：“慢一点来。〞

3 When scientists announced in February that they had created a clone of an adult sheep -- a genetically identical copy named Dolly, created in the laboratory from a single cell of the "parent" -- fierce debate arose over the pros and cons of trying to clone a human being.

当科学家于2月宣布他们缔造了一头由成年羊克隆而成的克隆羊――这头羊名叫多利，是从其“母体〞的一个单细胞在实验室里缔造的基因完全一样的复制品――时，对克隆人的利弊掀起了一场剧烈的争论。

4 People spoke of the plight of infertile couples; the grief of someone who has lost a child whose biological "rebirth" might offer comfort; the prospect of using cloning to generate donors for tissues and organs; the possibility of creating genetically enhanced clones with a particular talent or a resistance to some dread disease. 有人说到不育夫妇的苦境，说到人们失子之悲哀，而生物再生可能给他们带来抚慰；说到利用克隆技术产生组织与器官捐赠人的可能性；说到缔造强化基因克隆人的可能性，这些人可以拥有某种特别的才能或能抵御某些凶疾的才能。

5 But others saw a nightmarish and decidedly unnatural interference with human reproduction. California enacted a ban on human cloning, and the President's National Bioethics Advisory Commission recommended making the ban nationwide. 而有人那么看到了对人类繁殖的可怕的完全违犯自然的干与。加利福尼亚州通过了克隆人制止令，而总统的全国生物伦理参谋委员会那么建议将这一禁令推向全国。

6 That initial debate has cooled, however, and many in the scientific field now seem to be wondering what all the fuss was about.

然而，最初的论争渐渐平息，科学界不少人如今似乎惊讶，当初那么大惊小怪是为哪


般。

7 They are asking whether human cloning isn't just a small step beyond what we are already doing with artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, fertility enhancing drugs and genetic manipulation. That casual attitude is sure to give way before long to yet another wave of prohibitionist outrage -- a wave that I no longer feel comfortable riding. 他们问道，克隆人技术不就是比我们已经在做的人工授精、试管婴儿、增强授精药物、基因控制等往前再走了一小步吗？这种不以为然的态度不用多久肯定会让位于另一波制止主义的狂潮，――本人对这波狂潮深感不安，无意做个弄潮儿。

8 I certainly don't subscribe to the view that whatever technology permits us to do we ought to do. Nor do I subscribe to the view that the Constitution necessarily guarantees every individual the right to reproduce through whatever means become technically possible. 我当然不赞同那种认为只要技术能办到的，我们什么都该做的观点。我也不赞同那种认为宪法一定要保障每一个人有通过任何可能的科技手段进展繁殖的权利。

9 Rather, my concern is that the very decision to use the law to condemn, and then outlaw, patterns of human reproduction -- especially by appealing to vague notions of what is "natural" -- is at least as dangerous as the technologies such a decision might be used to control. 相反，我的担忧是，用法律的手段谴责并进而制止人类某些繁殖形式的决定本身――尤其是藉助于什么是“自然〞这一模糊观念――是危险的，其危险性不亚于这种决定可能用去控制的那些技术。

10 Human cloning has been condemned by some of its most articulate opponents as the ultimate embodiment of the sexual revolution, separating sex from the creation of babies and treating gender and sexuality as socially constructed.

克隆人被某些最雄辩的反对者谴责为性革命的最极端的表现――即把性与生育孩子相别离，把性别与性行为视为一种社会概念。

11 But to ban cloning as furthering what some see as culturally distressing trends may, in the end, lend support to strikingly similar objections to surrogate motherhood. 然而，认为克隆技术会促进某些人所认为的文化上令人忧虑的倾向而加以制止最终可能会导致反对代孕的呼声得以增强，而这种反对与对克隆人的反对又是何等惊人的相似。

12 Equally scary, when appeals to the natural, or to religious laws, lead to the criminalization of some method for creating human babies, we must come to terms with the inevitable: the prohibition will not be airtight. 同样可怕的是，当诉诸自然的，或宗教的法那么导致追究某些生育方式的刑事责任时，我们就必须面对一种必然的场面：这种制止不可能做到滴水不漏。

13 (2) Just as was true of bans on abortion and on sex outside marriage, bans on human cloning are bound to be hard to enforce. And that, in turn, requires us to think in terms of a class of potential outcasts -- people whose very existence society will have chosen to label as a misfortune and, in essence, to condemn.


就像制止人工流产和婚外性行为一样，制止克隆人肯定难以施行。而这一情况反过来要求我们考虑一个可能产生的社会弃儿阶层――那些社会将其存在视为不幸并本质上加以谴责的人们。

14 One need only think of the long struggle to overcome the stigma of "illegitimacy" for the children of unmarried parents. (3) How much worse might be the plight of being judged morally incomplete by virtue of one's man-made origin? 人们只要想一想为了消除非婚生孩子的“不法〞污名所进展的长期努力就会明白。由于一个人的人工出生而被判为道德欠缺的苦境将是何等难熬？

15 There are some black markets (in drugs, for instance) that may be worth risking when the evils of legalization would be even worse. But when what we prohibit takes the form of human beings, the stakes become enormous.

当合法化的弊端更为严重得多的情况下，我们可以冒点风险，允许有些黑市〔例如毒品〕存在。可是，当我们所要制止的是人的时候，这个风险就会变得非常宏大。

16 There are few evils as grave as that of creating a caste system, one in which an entire category of persons, while perhaps not labeled untouchable, is treated as not fully human.

人为制造一种等级制度，其中整整一类人，即使未必标上贱民二字，却被当成不完好的人加以对待，还有什么弊端比这更为严重呢？

17 And even if one could enforce a ban on cloning, or at least insure that clones would not be a mistreated caste, the social costs of prohibition could still be high. For the arguments supporting a rigid prohibition of cloning are most likely to rest on, and reinforce, the notion that it is unnatural and wrong to cut the conventional links between marriage and the creation and upbringing of new life.

而即使能对克隆技术施行制止，或至少确保克隆人不是遭受歧视的等级，制止的社会代价仍将是宏大的。因为支持严令制止克隆人的论点极有可能基于并强化一个观点，即：割断通常的传统上神圣的异性结合与新生命的缔造与养育之间的联络是违犯自然的和错误的。

18 Moreover, a society that bans acts of human creation for no better reason than that their particular form defies nature and tradition is a society that risks cutting itself off from vital experimentation, thus losing a significant part of its capacity to grow. (4) If human cloning is to be banned, then, the reasons had better be far more compelling than any thus far advanced. 而且，一个社会仅仅由于某一特定的创造人类生命的方式与自然及传统相杵就制止这种行为，那么这个社会就有可能中断必要的实验，从而丧失其相当一部分开展才能。因此，假设要制止克隆人，其理由应比任何已经提出的更为充分迫切得多才成。

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