Partial Trajectory: The Story of the Altered Nuclear Transfer-Oocyte Assisted Reprogramming (ANT-OAR) Proposal

This essay aims to tell the story of the “altered nuclear transfer-oocyte assisted reprogramming,” or ANT-OAR, proposal—from its conception by Professor William Hurlbut of the President’s Council on Bioethics—to its adoption and promotion by a group of conservative, mostly Catholic philosophers, theologians and scientists—to its eventual demise in Congress. It also will give some reflections on how ANT-OAR promotes a genetically deterministic view of the human organism and can lead down a slippery slope into a future in which human cloning and human genetic engineering are more acceptable. For these reasons, it will be argued, ANT-OAR should be opposed by all who are against human genetic modification regardless of their political orientation.