HUMAN CLONING
(Taken from ‘To Clone or not to Clone’ by Joseph Farnsworth)
When speaking of human cloning, what is meant? The American Medical Association (AMA) defined cloning as “the production of genetically identical organisms via somatic cell nuclear transfer. ‘Somatic cell nuclear transfer’ refers to the process which the nucleus of a somatic cell of an existing organism is transferred into an oocyte from which the nucleus has been removed” (Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs 1). In other words, cloning is the method of producing a baby that has the same genes as its parent. You take an egg and remove its nucleus, which contains the DNA/genes. Then you take the DNA from an adult cell and insert it into the egg, either by fusing the adult cell with the enucleated egg, or by a sophisticated nuclear transfer. You then stimulate the reconstructed egg electrically or chemically and try to make it start to divide and become an embryo. You then use the same process to implant the egg into a surrogate mother that you would use with artificial insemination.
One must understand that cloning does not produce an exact copy of the person being cloned. What cloning does, is that it copies the DNA/genes of the person and creates a duplicate genetically. The person will not be a Xerox copy. He or she will grow up in a different environment than the clone, with different experiences and different opportunities. Genetics does not wholly define a person and the personality.
In February 1997, when embryologist Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at Roslin Institute in Scotland were able to clone a lamb, named Dolly, the world was introduced to a new possibility and will never be the same again (Nash). Before this, cloning was thought to be impossible, but now there is living proof that the technology and knowledge to clone animals exist.
“As frightening as the thought may be, the fact is that scientists around the world already are working on producing a human clone—a fact that was made clear when, on November 26, 2001, researchers at Advanced Cell technology of Worcester, Massachusetts announced that they had successfully cloned eight human embryos, some of which grew to the four- or six-cell stage before dying (see“HumanEmbryo Created Through Cloning,” 2001). To complicate matters, reports are beginning to surface about other scientific groups that either are working on cloning, or that already have attempted it—with varying degrees of success.” (ApologeticsPress.org)
There are a great number of possible medical benefits and disadvantages to cloning and its technology. They include the following:
Potential Medical Benefits
The possibility that through cloning technology we will learn to renew activity of damaged cells by growing new cells and replacing them.
The capability to create humans with identical genetic makeup to act as organ donors for each other, i.e., kidney and bone marrow transplants.
The benefit of studying cell differentiation at the same time that cloning is studied and developed.
Sterile couples will be able to have offspring which will have either the mother’s or father’s genetic pattern.
Potential Harms and Disadvantages
The possibility of compromising individualities.
Loss of genetic variation.
A “black market” of fetuses may arise from desirable donors that will want to be able to clone themselves, i.e., movie stars, athletes, and others.
Technology is not well developed. It has a low fertility rate. In cloning Dolly, 277 eggs were used, 30 started to divide, nine induced pregnancy, and only one survived to term.
Clones may be treated as second-class citizens.
Unknown psychosocial harms with impacts on the family and society.
Thou Shalt Not Clone
One of the main goals of the government is to protect human life. Some people want the government to regulate cloning and not allow it. Michigan’s government believes this and became the first government to place a ban on cloning. A Michigan state senator, Mr. Bennett said, “This legislation boils down to one thing: Prohibiting the creation of human life for scientific research. Human cloning is wrong; it will be five years from now; and wrong 100 years from now!” (“Governor Engler…”) Producing clones for research or to use their parts is unethical. It would be against the code of ethics of a doctor to harm a clone (i.e., use it for an organ transplant). The clone would be a human being and deserve all the rights and privileges that a non-cloned human has. A clone should not be a second-class citizen. It is speculated that they would be considered as such.
The American Medical Association holds four points of reason why cloning should not take place. They are:
1) there are unknown physical harms introduced by cloning,
2) unknown psychosocial harms introduced by cloning, including violations of autonomy and privacy,
3) impacts on familial and societal relations, and
4) potential effects on the human gene pool (Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs 4-6).
“Another question must be asked as well: Would a human clone have a soul? Much of the debate occurring today (especially in religious circles) centers on this question. In addressing what seemed at the time the unlikely possibility of the cloning of a human, Duane Gish and Clifford Wilson inquired: “Would a clone be truly human? The answer is that, indeed, he would be human, for its life came from human life even though in a manner different than is usually the case” (1981, p. 174). In addition, they noted, the cloned human “is already alive, responsible to God for his actions, needing to preserve his own body against sickness, to see that he is properly fed, and all the rest. Each clone would have its own individual responsibility, its own soul” (p. 172). We concur with such an assessment. In James 2:26, James made this observation: “The body apart from the spirit is dead.” The point, of course, is that when the spirit departs the body, death results. But there is an obvious, and important, corollary to that statement. If the body is alive, it must be the case that the spirit is present. This biblical principle must not be ignored— especially in light of the present controversy. A cloned human would indeed possess a soul. The unusual manner of the clone’s birth would not alter that fact. Only God, however, can instill a soul. It is He Who “giveth to all, life, and breath, and all things.”” (ApologeticsPress.org)
However, just think if it was the case that a ‘cloned human’ would not possess a soul. It would be a humanoid animal. It would react much like an animal…. but be of the human variety. Some have postulated that the 200 Million man army in Revelation is made up of such beings.
CRYONICS
(The following is taken from Wikipedia)
Cryonics (often mistakenly called “cryogenics”) is the practice of cryopreserving humans or animals that can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine until resuscitation may be possible in the future. The largest current practitioners are two member-owned, non-profit organizations, the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, with 74 frozen patients and the Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township, Michigan with 75.
The process is not currently reversible. Cryonics can only be performed on humans after clinical death, and a legal determination that further medical care is not appropriate (legal death). The rationale for cryonics is that the process may be reversible in the future if performed soon enough, and that cryopreserved people may not really be dead by standards of future medicine.
Cryonics is viewed with skepticism by many scientists and doctors today. However, there is a high representation of scientists among cryonics supporters. Scientific support for cryonics is based on projections of future technology, especially molecular nanotechnology and nanomedicine. Some scientists believe that future medicine will enable molecular-level repair and regeneration of damaged tissues and organs decades or centuries in the future. Disease and aging are also assumed to be reversible.
The central premise of cryonics is that memory, personality, and identity are stored in the structure and chemistry of the brain. While this view is widely accepted in medicine, and brain activity is known to stop and later resume under certain conditions, it is not generally accepted that current methods preserve the brain well enough to permit revival in the future. Cryonics advocates point to studies showing that high concentrations of cryoprotectant circulated through the brain before cooling can largely prevent freezing injury, preserving the fine cell structures of the brain in which memory and identity presumably reside.
To its detractors, the justification for the actual practice of cryonics is unclear, given present limitations of preservation technology. Currently cells, tissues, blood vessels, and some small animal organs can be reversibly cryopreserved. Some frogs can survive for a few months in a partially frozen state a few degrees below freezing, but this is not true cryopreservation. Cryonics advocates counter that demonstrably reversible preservation is not necessary to achieve the present-day goal of cryonics, which is preservation of basic brain information that encodes memory and personal identity. Preservation of this information is said to be sufficient to prevent information theoretic death until future repairs might be possible.
Probably the most famous cryopreserved patient is Ted Williams.
Ethical and theological opinions of cryonics tend to pivot on the issue of whether cryonics is regarded as interment or medicine. If cryonics is interment, then religious beliefs about death and afterlife may come into consideration. Resuscitation may be deemed impossible by those with religious beliefs because the soul is gone, and according to most religions only God can resurrect the dead. Expensive interment is seen as a waste of resources. If cryonics is regarded as medicine, with legal death as a mere enabling mechanism, then cryonics is a long-term coma with uncertain prognosis. It is continuing to care for sick people when others have given up, and a legitimate use of resources to sustain human life. Cryonics advocates complain that theological dismissal of cryonics because it is interment is a circular argument because calling cryonics “interment” presumes that cryonics cannot work. They believe future technical advances will validate their view that cryonics patients are recoverable, and therefore never really dead.
EUGENICS
The ultimate goal of eugenics was to create a superior race of humans. Many adherents believed in evolution by natural selection, but that natural selection was moving too slowly in favoring the best and eliminating the worst. They also believed that charity in the form of taking care of the poor and sick was prohibiting natural selection from working properly and thus the need to intervene with artificial selection.
Over 30 states enacted sterilization laws, and between 60,000 and 70,000 people were forcibly sterilized between 1900 and 1970. . . . In 1927 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck (in Buck v. Bell) with justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stating, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime . . . society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kinds. . . . Three generation of imbeciles are enough.”
James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, stated in 2003, “If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease. The lower 10 percent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what’s the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, ‘Well poverty, things like that,’ It probably isn’t. So I’d like to get rid of that, to help lower the 10 percent.”
(Answers in Genesis)
Eugenics is the application of Darwinism to produce a ‘superior race’ by the state controlling human reproduction. Those judged more fit are coerced or bribed to produce more children, and those judged less fit are coerced or bribed to produce fewer children by forced sterilization or other means. According to a historian at the American Ethics and Public Policy Center, Christian Rosen Ph.D., the goal of eugenics was to control evolution from the blind slow process of nature to the intelligent, deliberate and purposeful guidance of evolution by intelligent humans. The most well known example of the application of this policy was in Nazi Germany, but it was also applied in the United States and other countries. The United States passed several laws requiring the sterilization of certain people, which were upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1927 case of Buck vs Bell. These laws also restricted the immigration of ‘inferior races’ such as Jews into the United States. As a result, many Jews perished in the holocaust—many who may have found safety in America. Some even arrived at our shores only to be sent back to Germany to perish in the concentration camps. Eugenics theory relied heavily on not only Darwinism, but also Darwin’s ‘tree of life’ view with its ‘extensive system of branches, representing the ever-increasing complexity of earth’s many species.’ Eugenics was a means to facilitate the further growth of this tree—specifically the advancement and evolution of the human race or, as eugenicists expressed it, the betterment of mankind. (Intelmin.org)
Eugenics is a social movement that supports the supposed improvement of the human population via selective breeding and other means. It was originally developed by Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, and based upon Darwin’s theory of evolution. Eugenics was practiced openly in the early decades of the 20th century in many countries, including the United States. After WWII, eugenics by that name fell into disfavor when the extent of Nazi atrocities became known. Eugenicists advocate genetic screening, birth control, segregation, transhumanism, euthanasia, compulsory sterilization, forced pregnancies, and abortion.
Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider. Sanger was also a proponent of eugenics who railed against the “reckless breeding” of the “unfit.” In her book Woman and the New Race, she wrote, “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it”. She desired “to breed a race of human thoroughbreds” and would rather a society “produce a thousand thoroughbreds than a million runts”.
From its founding, Planned Parenthood has been involved with eugenics. In 1932 the organization received the endorsement of the American Eugenics Society. To this day, Planned Parenthood is targeting those whom Sanger and other eugenicists would call “unfit.” Their 1997 publication Plan of Action stated their “core clients” are “young women, low-income women, and women of color.”
The Bible does not specifically mention eugenics, but the idea behind eugenics—that man can better himself by ridding the world of “undesireable” people—is definitely not biblical. God told mankind to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28; 9:1, 7). No exception to that command is given in Scripture. In fact, King Solomon wrote in Psalm 127:3–5 that children are a heritage from the Lord and that the fruit of the womb is a reward from Him.
God gives us life and numbers our days (Job 33:4; 14:5). The sovereign Lord determines whether we live or die. For social engineers to usurp God’s authority in order to create a self-defined “master race” is evil. We are to obey God, not men (Acts 5:29).
English theologian G. K. Chesterton wrote in his 1922 book Eugenics and Other Evils, “There is no reason in Eugenics, but there is plenty of motive. Its supporters are highly vague about its theory, but they will be painfully practical about its practice” (from Chapter VIII, “A Summary of a False Theory”).
Eugenics is a meritless and immoral social engineering experiment with dubious chances for “success,” as defined by its supporters. It is a slippery slope in which Chesterton’s scientific madmen abrogate the authority of God and seek to create their own utopia on Earth. Through abortion and euthanasia, eugenics is simply murder. Job 24:14 says, “When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up, kills the poor and needy, and in the night steals forth like a thief.” This is the role of the eugenicist: killing the poor and needy and those he deems “unworthy”; preventing a “poor quality of life” (in his estimation) by taking life; denying men’s liberty; and playing God.
(GotQuestions.org)