An Orthodox Perspective on Human Cloning
We are witnessing the dawning of a Brave New World, a world in which the prospect of human cloning is no longer a nightmare of science fiction, but a nightmare of scientific reality. The world awoke to the reality of reproductive cloning in 1997 with the birth of Doll, a ewe cloned from an adult lamb by scientists at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, Scotland. Since then, despite a bill passed by the United States House of Representatives to outlaw all forms of human cloning, the march continues. On November 24, 2001, Advanced Cell Technology, a biotech firm in Worcester, Massachusetts, announced the first successful cloning of a human embryo, which was later killed to "harvest" stem cells from the core of human blast cysts. Most recently, a dubious claim to have accomplished the first true "reproductive" cloning of a human being was made by Clonaid, a firm founded by a bizarre religious sect called the Raelians. While Clonaid's claims may well prove to be false, so-called "therapeutic" cloning is widely supported by scientific researchers, biotech corporations, and liberal politicians. No amount of legislation - as necessary and welcome as it may be - will likely stop those intent on producing a cloned human being. Once this Pandora's box of New Medicine has been opened, a new post-human era will be inaugurated.
What we are witnessing is modern science fulfilling its ugliest internal impulse: the Baconian project of conquering nature in an effort to establish a technologically-achieved utopia. But in so doing, modern science is going out from under man's control, permanently altering nature, and dethroning God as Creator. The result of this blasphemy can only be the establishment of the darkest tyranny ever known to human history. The man who will populate and propagate this tyranny will not be God-created, but created by fallen man in his own image and likeness; the basic stuff of his life will be artificial and altered.
An extraordinarily revealing moment in the debate over cloning took place in the House of Representatives, when the congressman from Ohio urged his colleagues: "We should not allow theology, philosophy or politics to interfere in the decision we make on this issue." But if the science of cloning is left to evolve to its logical conclusion, it will end in eugenics. Science here has exceeded its traditional goals of wondering at nature and treating human illness, and now looks to fundamentally change human bodies and minds, and thus human nature. It is precisely here, contrary to Congressman Strickland's claim, that we urgently have need of grasping the theological truth of the sanctity and uniqueness of life, of God as the only giver of life, and conception as the beginning of the individual human person.
What is Cloning?
Cloning is the technique of producing a genetically identical duplicate of an organism. In the case of human cloning, the nucleus of an adult cell is injected into an insulated egg, so that the donor DNA replaces the nucleus already present in the egg, and then cell division is electronically prompted. The result becomes a human embryo, genetically identical to the donor. In the case of so-called "reproductive cloning," the egg is implanted into the woman's uterus to grow. Done successfully, it would result in the birth of an infant. In the case of the benign-sounding "therapeutic cloning," the embryo is never implanted into the uterus. Instead, it is allowed to develop for a few days before a part is removed to provide stem cells which have the unique potential to become any human cell – and thus have potential for disease treatment – before the embryo is destroyed, or more accurately, killed. Reproductive cloning is currently opposed by nearly all responsible scientists – Clonaid not included – but therapeutic cloning has widespread support, based on the claim that it may provide a means to treatment and tissue replacement for a series of incurable ailments.
Both techniques are sinister. Both produce life artificially. As Father Dimitrios Demopulos, who holds a Ph.D. in genetics, writes: "As an Orthodox Christian I speak out in opposition to any attempt to clone a human being, because humans are supposed to be created in acts of love between two people, not through the manipulation of cells that are ultimately an expression of self-love. Our actions should bring us together in Christ, not separate us into new and different classifications." This manipulation of cells opens the door to "genetic enhancement" and increased control over traits deemed desirable, and the elimination of those which are not. In other words, eugenics. This genetic manipulation is ultimately an act of cruelty, subjecting the embryo to the whims of scientists and when resulting in birth, to unforeseen illness and danger. As Professor Leon Kass of the University of Chicago testified before Congress: "Cloning constitutes unethical experimentation of the child-to-be, subjecting him or her to enormous risks of bodily and developmental abnormalities. It threatens individuality. It confuses identity. It represents a giant step toward turning procreation into manufacture. And it is a radical form of parental despotism and child abuse." So-called "therapeutic cloning" is equally, if not even more, inhuman. In the name of dubious medical evidence for miracle cures, it produces life only to destroy it. Legalizing it would in fact result in the first category of life which legally had to be killed. As Charles Krauthammer put it, it represents "the most ghoulish and dangerous enterprise in modern scientific history: the creation of nascent cloned human life for the sole purpose of its exploitation and destruction."
(To be concluded)
Monk Serge (Nedelsky)