Chapter 6: Baby Cloning
Remember Larry? The truck driver who now sits in a wheelchair in a Arizona nursing home? The man hell-bent on either getting cured or killed? Lately he’s been leaning toward that cure — but not a cure in the sense of “take two pills and I’ll see you walking in the morning.” Larry is hoping for a different kind of healing.
I learned about Larry’s hopes for a cure when I spoke with his mother on the phone. What she said sent shivers. “Our one hope — Larry’s hope — is that all these new technological advancements, all the work Christopher Reeve is doing — our hope is that with this technology, Larry will soon be on his feet.”
On one hand, I hope right along with Larry. As you’ve already gleaned from earlier chapters, researchers are refining extraordinary new therapies using stem cells — “blank slate” cells — scraped from the nose or bone tissue of the patient. It’s exciting to see what adult stem cell therapies are producing; these wonderful discoveries bring healing and hope. And I’m all for them.
But Larry’s mother is thinking of a different kind of stem cell therapy. She’s pinning all her hopes on scientists one day scraping cells from Larry’s skin, extract his DNA, insert his genetic information into a woman’s egg (with its nucleus removed) and — voila! — create a clone of her son. That living, human embryo would grow and, after it reaches a certain stage, technicians would harvest out its stem cells — cells that genetically match Larry’s. They would then nurture and expand them into neurons which could then be replanted into Larry’s mangled spinal cord. At that point, everyone would hold their breath and hope for a dream to come true.
But is cloning for cures a dream or a nightmare? Every nightmare seems to have a benign beginning — such as Larry’s hope of walking — but then it slowly unfolds into a specter. Larry’s mother is convinced that her son’s best chances of walking lie with stem cells extracted from clones. More specifically, a clone of her son.
How Cloning Is Done
“Somatic cell nuclear transfer” (SCNT) produces an embryo that in every respect is identical to the embryo that results from fertilization. Only a genetic test can tell it apart from any other embryo. It is called SCNT because the nucleus of a “somatic cell” — a regular cell, like most of the cells in our body; one that is differentiated and is not linked to reproduction — is transferred into an egg that has been emptied (enucleated) of most of its genetic material. From a genetic perspective, it is almost an identical twin of the one cloned — “almost” because the mitochondria remains in the egg when its nucleus is removed. A tiny, genetically insignificant part of the genetic material of the clone comes from the egg donor.
Stop there.
Do you sense anything nightmarish about that? Does it unsettle you even slightly that researchers are creating clones of human beings in order to harvest their cells?
You probably squirm at the idea but can’t put your finger on exactly why. On one hand, you’re all for finding a cure for diseases or for paralyzing injuries; on the other hand, something seems definitely disquieting about grappling with the stuff of human genesis. Something feels sinister about creating an entire class of human beings for the sole purpose of experimentation. You have the sense it’s downright Machiavellian to clone, then kill, a human embryo merely for its parts. Isn’t that exploitive? Your instincts tell you a moral compass is needed. Your Bible tells you, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 16:25).
The compass must come from someone — or something — infinitely more objective than the collective moral sensibilities of a few people or the intuitive convictions of even the majority.
You need an ethical grid that will help distinguish between good and bad, right and wrong. Something that will draw the line between a dream and a nightmare. Something that will show us who we should be and what we should be doing.
If we are to infuse Christian salt in our confused world, if we are to shine the light of Christ to people like Larry and his mother, we need to get our heads around the ethical grid.
And that grid is woven out of Genesis 1:27, for “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” God created man in his image. For man to create man in his image runs smack in the face of God’s creative authority. Cloning is an affront to God, an open insult and purposeful offense to the Creator.
Who would have thought the future could have arrived so quickly?
Researchers are moving forward at jet-blast speed, fueled by a biotech industry anxious for profits and venture capitalists looking for a robust return on investment. Larry and his mother are benign players in a global medical drama that is copying, replicating, and genetically manipulating human beings at a breakneck pace.
This isn’t space-age wacko science fiction talk.
It’s a nightmare looming on the horizon.
And it’s coming our way.
JONI
Is Cloning Illegal?
Some countries have already banned cloning, including Canada, France, Australia, Norway, and Germany. All have comprehensive cloning bans, making it illegal to clone human embryos for any purposes, either for experiments or to produce cloned babies. In a handful of countries such experiments are permitted. In the United Kingdom, cloning experiments are encouraged and funded by the government; but experimenters are required to kill the embryos, because it remains illegal to produce cloned babies.
In the United States, vigorous debates have taken place about the best approach to take. No federal law currently exists, although the Food and Drug Administration has said that it has the authority and the will to prevent the birth of cloned babies. Some states have banned all cloning, while a small number allow cloning for experiments. California has raised $3 billion dollars in a ballot to fund “stem cell research,” which includes cloning and killing human embryos.
On Valentine’s Day, 2002, a simple headline announced the birth of a kitten to the world: “Pet cloning could be just a whisker away.” Researchers in Texas had successfully cloned a cat. Eighty-six other kitten embryos died in the process, but “CC” survived. With funding from a wealthy couple who originally wanted to clone their dog, the first example of pet cloning had succeeded. If you have seen the Schwarzenegger movie The Sixth Day, you will remember its vision of a world in which pet cloning had become standard.
The success of pet cloning certainly brings the cloning of people one giant step nearer.
CRAZY CLONERS
The UFO man
Rael is a strange man. He wears a flowing white robe and keeps his hair long. He used to be a sports writer and drive race cars, but thirty years ago he changed tracks and founded a sect — a sect with a difference.
Raelians, as his followers are called, believe in UFOs. They believe that creatures from space visited the earth long ago and started human life. How did they do it? By cloning. So when Rael and his followers heard the news that a sheep had been cloned, they knew their big opportunity had come.
First they began to issue press releases saying that they favored cloning babies. Then they got invited to testify at hearings in Congress so they could make their case. Rael and his scientist colleague, Brigitte Boisillier, appeared on our TV screens and in the press week after week. Finally, at the close of 2002, they carried off their biggest coup. They claimed that they had engineered the birth of the first cloned baby. They claimed they would arrange independent proof, through a well-known science journalist. For a few days, their press conferences seemed like the biggest news story in the world — until they changed their mind. They used various excuses to cancel the “proof” process.
In interviews Rael himself told the world that Brigitte Boisillier was a remarkable woman; either she had really cloned a baby, or she had convinced the world that she had.
Let Clonaid Clone You!
Welcome to CLONAID™ — the first human cloning company! CLONAID™ was founded in February 1997 by Rael, the leader of the Raelian Movement, an international religious organization, which claims that a human extraterrestrial race, called the Elohim, used DNA and genetic engineering to scientifically create all life on Earth.
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One reporter wrote: “Either this was one of the most momentous announcements of all time or it was a cheap gimmick designed to garner maximum publicity for an outlandish cult that believes in aliens from outer space. It might be both.”
It was, of course, one of the biggest hoaxes ever. The world press had made sure we all stayed glued to the story. And the Raelians established themselves (for a short while, anyway) as the best-known sect on the planet.
The Strange Dr. Seed
Besides the Raelians, some scientists say they are at work on the first human clone. Back in 1998 a man named Dr. Richard Seed appeared on Chicago television to announce that he would be the first to clone a baby. Everyone wondered if that could be his real name! No one in the scientific community took him seriously, partly because of his strange appearance and partly because he had a background in physics rather than biology. But the public responded so strongly that President Bill Clinton came out of the White House to reassure Americans that Dr. Seed would not be allowed to succeed. Cloning babies would be stopped.
Dr. Seed remained defiant. “I happen to disagree with the president rather strongly,” he said. Then he sketched out his view of technology and the future. “I believe man will develop the technology and science and the capability to have an indefinite life span and what goes with that is the capability to have an unlimited knowledge. It’s the next step from animal cloning.”
Dr. Seed’s Pro-Cloning Case
Cloning is a legitimate treatment of infertility.
Cloning can be used to replace a lost loved one with a twin; for example, a child tragically killed in a car accident.
Human cloning will unleash a torrent of research that will benefit mankind by vastly increasing our knowledge of medicine and biology.
Human cloning can take a 65-year-old and turn the age of that person back to zero — to the one-cell stage. It is not unreasonable to expect that in the future we can turn the age of the 65-year-old back to 25!
Bioethicists are nay-sayers. The bioethicist movement started in the 1970s. For the most part, the role of bioethicists is to say no to change and to resist progress. Historically, they have been wrong over and over again.
SUMMARY BY HUMAN CLONING FOUNDATION, HUMANCLONING.ORG
More Rogue Scientists
The Raelians and Dr. Seed are not alone in wanting to clone babies. Severino Antinori is a leading Italian ob-gyn and a specialist in in vitro fertilization — test-tube babies — and it has made him famous around the world. To be precise, he is not just famous; he is notorious, primarily because he has enabled women well past childbearing age to bear children. The oldest, so far, is a sixty-four-year-old grandmother.
Nobel Laureate Supports Cloning
“James Watson, one of the discoverers of the secret of DNA half a century ago, is backing the right of Severino Antinori, the maverick Italian scientist, to create a human clone. He told The Independent on Sunday that he had no ethical or scientific objections to scientists trying to create clones. . . . ‘I’m not going to worry about him. If the first clone is born, it’s not going to kill the Earth.’ ”
Dr. Antinori had been working with an American scientist, Professor Panos Zavos. They have testified, made speeches, and appeared on television talk shows to make their case in favor of cloning. They have been telling the world that they are at work in their labs, preparing the way for the birth of the first cloned babies. Antinori and Zavos have told the press they are no longer working together, but are now collaborating with colleagues in other countries. While it is hard to know where the truth lies, one thing seems certain: these pro-cloning people love being in the news!
In August, 2002, Zavos announced that he had seven couples ready to begin cloning procedures. Then he produced Bill and Kathy (with their identities disguised) to prove it. They planned to use Kathy’s DNA, so the clone would be her “twin sister” as well as her daughter.
NOT-SO-CRAZY CLONERS
Pro-Cloners Who Can’t Be So Easily Dismissed
It would be easy to get the impression that only crazy people, such as UFO cultists and publicity-seeking rogue scientists, want to clone babies. And when the media focuses on them and their antics, they certainly make good television! Someone has said that not one single vote exists on Capitol Hill in favor of cloning babies.
But things are not quite so simple.
Side by side with the crazies is a growing group of academics in the bioethics and medical communities who do favor cloning. While they know it may be some time before safety issues get resolved, they are already making their case that baby cloning should be permitted.
This group includes Dr. Greg Pence, medical school ethics professor from Alabama and author of a manifesto in favor of cloning: Who’s Afraid of Human Cloning? Another prominent pro-cloner, Texas law professor Dr. John Robertson, carries influence with many physicians and scientists.
Some celebrities have joined the bandwagon, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, now governor of California. Mr. Schwarzenegger once starred in a memorable cloning movie, The Sixth Day, and in real life has been quoted as saying, “I would go for it. I would have been cloned.”
One of the most disturbing proponents is British philosopher Mary Warnock. Twenty years ago, after in vitro fertilization first made its appearance, she was asked to chair a commission to help shape the law regarding the practice. Today she is quoted as saying, “I can’t see any reason to believe that in ten or twenty years’ time there won’t be human cloning anywhere in the world. . . . It would not be the end of the world if a man was cloned.” Lady Warnock is one of the most influential voices in the world of biotech policy.
The In Vitro Doctors Keep Their Options Open
The in vitro doctors’ organization is called the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (the ASRM). If one day baby cloning is successful and becomes legal, these are the people who would add cloning to their list of options for anyone who wishes to take advantage of the new baby-making technology. And the evidence suggests that they are wide open to the possibility.
Officially the ASRM is against baby cloning. Its representatives have so testified before Congress, and the society has a clear anti-cloning statement on its website. But why is it against baby cloning? Look at what this group has said: “We have reviewed the scientific data . . . given the current state of knowledge, any attempt at human cloning would be scientifically inappropriate and thus unethical.”
You have to look twice to realize just what the ASRM’s position is. Why is baby cloning unethical? Because it is “scientifically inappropriate.” And why is it scientifically inappropriate? The only reason the ASRM so far opposes baby cloning is that it is not — at the moment — “safe.” It may harm babies and also the women who carry them in their wombs. We need more tests on animals, more experiments, before it can become “scientifically appropriate.” Once it does, all of a sudden, it will become “ethical.”
In fact, their public statements say nothing about opposing cloning in principle. So while they like to hear their “anti-cloning” stance quoted, their actual position is identical to that of people like bioethics professor Gregory Pence. He opposes cloning too — at the moment, when it seems too risky. But he is also one of cloning’s leading defenders.
The only difference is that he likes people to think he is pro-cloning. We saw earlier in this chapter that he has written a book to argue his case. As a professor, he makes speeches, writes books, and generally enjoys playing the role of gadfly as he debates his case.
The in vitro doctors want us to think of them as responsible. They continually point to their anti-cloning stance. But in fact they agree with Dr. Pence. They have no problem with baby cloning in principle. Once it is “safe,” they plan to start cloning babies to order.
WHAT CLONING IS AND WHAT IT ISN’T
The Dolly Story
It’s hard to remember now what a big story cloning was back in 1997. Dolly the sheep stared at us from TV screens and the covers of news magazines. The media ran specials to remind us of our high school biology so we could better understand the story. It remained the lead story for a long time.
Dolly’s cloning took everyone by surprise. To that point cloning was a science fiction idea that scientists thought might one day become possible, but not for many years. The technique used by the scientists who cloned Dolly so surprised some experts that they thought it must have been a fluke or a fraud. They thought the technique just couldn’t have worked, partly because it was too simple.
How Does Cloning Work?
The goal of cloning is to make mammals — including, perhaps, human beings — that are identical to others already born. The technique used to clone Dolly is called “somatic cell nuclear transfer.” How does it work?
When mammals (including humans!) reproduce, two gametes are involved: the egg from the female, and the sperm from the male. The sperm penetrates the egg and fertilizes it so it becomes a tiny new member of the species. Cloning completely alters the procedure. It is called “asexual” reproduction, since it involves neither sexual relations between male and female, nor the union of sperm and egg. (While in vitro fertilization does not involve sexual relations, it still depends on the fertilization of an egg with sperm, in a lab.)
Cloning creates a new member of the species basically by splitting off an identical twin from an existing member of the species. The method takes the genetic material from a cell of one animal (in Dolly’s case, from the skin of the udder of the sheep being copied), and injects it into an unfertilized egg from which most of the genetic material has been removed. When this new genetic stuff is introduced to the empty egg, the latter is persuaded (using chemicals and electricity) to behave like an egg that has been fertilized.
In Dolly’s case, 277 eggs were fertilized. Only one led to a reasonably healthy, live-born baby lamb. But because all you need to clone is genetic material from an adult cell and a supply of eggs, large numbers of identical clones can be produced. Dolly was reasonably healthy, but not completely. In the end she had to be put to death.
Dolly’s Obituary
She was created by biotechnicians, debated by theologians and finally put to sleep by veterinarians. Now Dolly the sheep has been stuffed by taxidermists and put on display before the public.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
One of the loudest voices against cloning babies has been Rudolph Jaenisch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, perhaps the world’s leading expert on animal cloning. He says that cloning a human “would probably damage more than 1,000 of its genes . . . so that even normal-looking clones would harbour hidden health problems.” He draws these conclusions from studies of the thousands of animals that have been cloned. In cloned mice, one in twenty-five genes gets damaged. And the result? “Recent studies showing premature death, pneumonia, liver failure, and obesity in aging cloned mice could be a consequence.”
Indeed, protests have come from animal rights activists about the pain and suffering this is causing cloned animals. “Deaths and deformities in cloned animals are the norm, not the exception, and these studies make plain once again that these creatures are suffering terribly in the process,” said Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States.
ARE THERE “GOOD ARGUMENTS”
FOR CLONING?
We have no lack of bad arguments and weird people who argue in favor of cloning. Remember the bizarre Ted Williams story? A family fight developed when the baseball great’s son had his father’s body frozen so they could clone him once the technology had been perfected.
People wish to replicate their loved ones. A couple wants to clone one of themselves. Once cloning starts, it is hard to see how we will ever stop it. It will go well beyond infertility (always used as the best-case argument, since we have so much sympathy for the infertile). We shall not have to wait long before we start cloning celebrities. How many couples would really like to have as their child the genetic twin of their favorite sports or movie or singing star? Or maybe their favorite preacher?
If that sounds unlikely, don’t forget that Bill and Kathy — Panos Zavos’s guinea-pig couple who, he says, will be the first Americans to have a cloned baby — say they are Christians and that this is God’s plan for them. “I think God really wants us to do this,” they said to Connie Chung on CNN. “I can’t imagine any reason why we haven’t had a child, other than this is what we were meant to do.”
Let’s look at some of the “good cases” that involve no celebrities, no mass cloning of Hitlers or Einsteins. And let’s assume that cloning proves safe. What about an infertile couple who, like Dr. Zavos’s Bill and Kathy, choose cloning over in vitro? Bill and Kathy plan to clone Kathy. They could have chosen to clone Bill. Either way would work.
Some people have argued that cloning is actually preferable to in vitro that uses “donor gametes” — sperm and egg from outside the marriage — as it means the child is genetically related to at least one parent. However, this presents a new problem: the cloned “daughter” (in this case) is very closely related — too closely. In fact, she is her “mother’s” biological sister. She is actually the biological daughter, not of Bill and Kathy at all, but of Kathy’s parents. As Kathy sees her “daughter” growing up as the spitting image of herself, it is plain that the family will go through some very strange experiences. How will the daughter differentiate herself from her mother, who is essentially the same as her? And how will Bill feel as he watches the woman he fell in love with (his wife) grow up as his daughter? The complications boggle the mind, and the ensuing family and personal dysfunctions are virtually assured. The notion that cloning is simply “an alternative to in vitro” is ridiculous. It’s a recipe for a very strange family life, indeed.
The other “good argument” concerns the case of a child who dies and parents who want to “replace” the child with a clone. Once again, our hearts go out to people who have to face such tragedy. It is more difficult to say no to such a scenario than to any other situation. One time when the Raelians testified at a congressional hearing, they read a tragic letter from a couple whose child had died and whom they wanted to clone — though the argument backfired when one of the members of Congress pointed out that, according to the letter, the child had actually died of a genetic disorder. So if he were cloned, his twin would have the same problems and could die in just the same way.
Growing Up in Counseling
I once sat on ABC’s Nightline, facing a pro-cloning bioethics expert who offered the following example: What about a couple whose child dies, and who want to clone that child for their next baby? If the child does not die of a genetic disorder, they could use cloning to have his or her “twin,” who would have every chance of being healthy. The anchor turned to me and asked me to comment. I asked a question: Who speaks for the child? We have so much sympathy for the parents. But the key moral question is about the child-to-be and his or her well-being. I suggested that this child would grow up in counseling, for early on this little child would realize that he or she is a copy of another child. Whether they share the same room, or clothes, or toys, or even have different ones, growing up is all about comparisons with and memories of someone else — not about this new life, this fresh person, who should exist and know that he or she exists for his or her own sake. By all means, let’s have sympathy for the parents; but what about the child? “Is that a good example of cloning?” I quipped; “Give me a bad one!” And the anchor turned to the bioethics expert and said, “Dr. Cameron has a good point, doesn’t he?”
NIGEL CAMERON
SO WHY SHOULDN’T WE?
Shortly after the announcement of Dolly’s cloning, a leading Christian physician picked up the phone and began calling his friends. “I know this is wrong,” he said. “We can’t let them do this to people. But I’m just not sure why. Can you tell me?”
Something deep down in most of us “just knows” this isn’t right, that we shouldn’t be making people, copying people, mass-producing people. Dr. Leon Kass, who chaired the President’s Council on Bioethics, has called it “repugnance,” and says we are wise to feel that way. But we have to explain why.
If we ask the question like that, many of us will not find it easy to answer. “Give me three reasons why cloning is wrong.” What might they be?
Before we list some responses, we have to get our bearings. As we have seen, it isn’t always easy to get inside arguments about something as vital but as unusual as making babies. We know that abortion is wrong, and anything that kills or threatens embryos and fetuses (and newborns!) must therefore be wrong. But these technologies have crept up on us while we looked the other way.
Plainly, at the moment, cloning is a very dangerous technology. If it is proved to work in human beings, it will have come at the cost of countless experimental embryos. If it follows the pattern of Dolly, it will lead to deformed fetuses and newborns that die. That is why many scientists and the fertility doctors’ organization currently oppose cloning babies. But what if we woke up tomorrow and someone had solved the technical problems? What if cloning didn’t threaten embryos and women anymore? Would it still be wrong?
Consider God’s design for new people. It starts with sexual intercourse in the context of marriage. Part of the beauty of that design is how it separates our babies from us. We never know whether a given act of sex will result in conception. And even though we may pick our marriage partners partly because we like the idea of kids who resemble them, there is a genetic mystery at work — unbelievers would call it a lottery! — that mixes up the genes in incredibly complex ways. You may marry a tall, handsome, blonde guy and have a baby boy who resembles that uncle of his you never did get to meet. We don’t control the genetic mix. So we don’t design our children; they are never “products” that we have planned or “commodities” we have obtained. They are, right from the start, other people, whom we care for and love but never own.
So what’s wrong with cloning?
Cloning flips us into a whole different way of relating to children. We pick the genes we like — mine, yours, a celebrity’s — and choose whose “twin” our next baby will be. The dividing line between “having a baby” and “buying a product” becomes much thinner and may get erased altogether.
We already know a lot about the life that will unfold, because someone has lived its genes before. Of course, we know that identical twins do not lead identical lives. But many things remain the same for them, even if they are raised apart — and will therefore be the same with a clone. While with twins the future remains unknown, as they remain the same age, with a clone we could have detailed knowledge of what the future might bring. We sample this experience as we look at our parents and realize how much we grow like them. But with a clone it will be much stronger.
Very confused family relationships will unfold. We saw how this might work with Kathy and Bill, Dr. Zavos’s cloning couple. They plan to clone Kathy. Their baby will be her identical twin. Their “daughter” will be Bill’s sister-in-law. Her real parents will be Kathy’s parents. It is naive to believe that all this will make no difference as the little girl grows up. Imagine the strains in the family as she goes through adolescence, or if the marriage comes under pressure.
We are all a blend of nature and nurture. The nature comes from our genes; the nurture from our experience. Pro-cloners sometimes use this fact to suggest that we needn’t worry too much. But it also works the other way. Kathy and Bill will feel very tempted to copy key experiences from Kathy’s early life to make sure that their “daughter” turns out like Kathy (which is presumably why they wanted to clone her in the first place).
Imagine the pressure when people start cloning celebrities. Perhaps you spend your savings so you can have as your next child a clone of a famous ball player (maybe Ted Williams). You will be very interested in how the guy you picked and cloned was raised. If he spends his spare time watching TV or playing chess, he is likely to waste his ball-playing talent. So you read up on the young Ted Williams and see how he spent his time, what key experiences he had. (If you saw the movie, The Boys from Brazil, you will get the point. They cloned Hitler, and then killed all the little boys’ dads at the age that Hitler’s dad died. That’s an extreme example, but it makes the point.) There will be books with titles like Raising Your Clone for Dummies to help you get it right. After all that investment in the nature, you don’t want to mess up the nurture, do you?
At the Movies
The Boys from Brazil, a thriller made in 1978, starred Gregory Peck as Josef Mengele. Directed by Franklin Schaffner, it is credited with reawakening interest in Nazi fugitives in South America. Originally rated an R, it is mild by comparison with some contemporary R ratings. The most disturbing piece occurs toward the end; most of those who have seen it have never forgotten the dogs.
It develops a simple theme: Nazis clone Hitler and raise their Hitler clones to take over the world. The film features superior plot and dialog (and casting) and, unlike some other movies (like the silly Multiplicity), it understands cloning. The bad guys take great pains to replicate the conditions of Hitler’s childhood in their little Hitlers, all the way to killing their fathers when the boys reach the age Hitler was when his own father died.
Columbia released The Sixth Day in 2001, starring Arnold Schwar-zenegger. The plot gets a little complicated, but the basic idea features a world in which pet cloning is the norm, but human cloning remains illegal. The “sixth day” of the title comes from Genesis 1 (lost on many audiences), and refers to a law that makes cloning illegal — and has led the Supreme Court to require the death of a clone.
When “CC,” the cat, was cloned in 2002 — the first pet cloning — the story began to seem a little more credible. Putting cloned people to death seems a curious way to deal with the issue, but it draws attention to its significance.
And then what do you do when your little Ted Williams look-alike falls off his bike at the age of four, breaks his leg badly, and ever after walks with a limp? Do you ask for your money back?
Cloning dehumanizes us and treats people like things.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF WE CLONE?
Some pro-cloners talk as if we can allow these techniques to be used in special cases, like infertility, and prevent their use for other purposes. Not likely!
Once this technology gets perfected, people around the world will use it for many purposes. Infertile couples will certainly use it. There will most certainly be special interest from gays and lesbians. Individuals and couples will use it to copy people for every possible reason. Some will copy themselves or their loved ones. Some will copy their parents, aunts, or uncles.
Use your imagination. Legacies will be tied to a requirement that grandchildren clone their deceased grandparents. Groups of people — maybe like the Raelians — will clone their leaders or their heroes. Leaders like Saddam Hussein and Nicolae Ceaucescu, who plan long-term for their nations and expect to remain in power for decades, might clone themselves in large numbers.
Meanwhile, in the “free world,” we will witness the spectacle of celebrity cloning — hundreds, thousands, of Michael Jordans, Orlando Blooms, and Gwyneth Paltrows — whoever is considered the biggest star of the day, assuming they agree to have their genes used — and perhaps even if they don’t. A whole new kind of crime could emerge of stealing DNA . . . not hard to do.
What would it be like to be one of a hundred, or ten thousand, “identical twins,” all of different ages, all copied from someone famous? It’s a weird sci-fi scenario, but if this technology takes hold, it looks inevitable.
During debates on this issue, I’ve been scoffed at, called an alarmist, and pooh-poohed. “This is progress; this is technology that will give us cures in this generation. How can you, with a clear conscience, use such scare tactics, whipping up unfounded fears in people’s minds? You belong in the past, not the future!”
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Maybe they belong in the past — the recent past. My opponents in those debates need a history lesson. Remember what happened just a little over fifty years ago in Nazi Germany. When medical teams began their insidious experiments, the first to be carted away in the dark, in the middle of the night, were the mentally defective. Researchers — or at least their cohorts — entered the hallways of mental institutions to whisk away disabled people. But not just any disabled people. Nazi medical teams singled out mentally handicapped individuals who had no visitors, no family members, no advocates, and no friends to speak up for them. After many months when still no one spoke up, medical teams then carted away physically disabled people.
Then gypsies.
Then Jews.
This is the nightmare. Sin left unchecked always grows darker. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond This cure. Who can understand it?”
It’s a history lesson cloning advocates need to learn.
Larry, with his crushed lungs and snapped spinal cord, lies exposed in a society that thinks nothing of creating a class of human beings for medical experimentation. Larry and millions like him remain vulnerable in a culture that keeps redrawing the line of “viability” for a human being. Already our society has violated human embryos; little wonder we’ve become calloused about cloning them. And the difference between killing or cloning an embryo and discarding people with disabilities is only a matter of degree.
Remember, evil left unchecked has a way of becoming more evil.
As a friend in a wheelchair has said, “This is not a slide down the slippery slope. This is downhill skiing. And the way to stop it is to draw the line right now. Not just because that line is right, but because the very notion of drawing lines is at stake.” The rights of the weak, of people like Larry in his wheelchair, are safeguarded only in a society that honors life.
That’s why I must speak up from my wheelchair. We need friends like you to speak up and speak out too. We even need those who might only “visit” this topic of cloning. Whether human beings are quadriplegics or clones, we must push the line back to the Word of God. All it takes is courage and wisdom.
For “wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways, who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways” (Proverbs 2:12 – 15).
And if anyone wants to know, Larry and I have a much better chance of walking using adult stem cell therapies. More on that a little later.
JONI