Question

1. Discuss the position of “human cloning” from a religious perspective. Your answers must use at least three reference materials such as books, articles or websites and these references must be clearly stated in writing. The discussion must also include at least one opinion from any religious scholars. Your answer should be written in at least two pages.

Answer 1

Over the last twenty-five years religious thinkers have discussed the prospect of human cloning in the context of long-standing religious traditions that often influence and guide citizens' responses to new technologies. Religious positions on human cloning are pluralistic in their premises, modes of argument, and conclusions. Nevertheless, several major themes are prominent in Jewish, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Islamic positions, including responsible human dominion over nature, human dignity and destiny, procreation, and family life. Some religious thinkers argue that cloning a human to create a child would be intrinsically immoral and thus could never be morally justified; they usually propose a ban on such human cloning. Some other religious thinkers contend that human cloning to create a child could be morally justified under some circumstances but hold that it should be strictly regulated in order to prevent abuses.

Over the last twenty-five years religious thinkers have discussed the prospect of human cloning in the context of long-standing religious traditions that often influence and guide citizens' responses to new technologies. Religious positions on human cloning are pluralistic in their premises, modes of argument, and conclusions. Nevertheless, several major themes are prominent in Jewish, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Islamic positions, including responsible human dominion over nature, human dignity and destiny, procreation, and family life. Some religious thinkers argue that cloning a human to create a child would be intrinsically immoral and thus could never be morally justified; they usually propose a ban on such human cloning. Some other religious thinkers contend that human cloning to create a child could be morally justified under some circumstances but hold that it should be strictly regulated in order to prevent abuses.

Media reports often depict the debate over the prospects of cloning humans as a classical confrontation between science and religion. This depiction is misleading. Not all arguments against cloning humans are religious, and not all religious thinkers oppose the cloning of humans in all circumstances. Furthermore, many contend that the possibility of cloning humans offers an opportunity for substantive dialogue between scientists and theologians. Probing the intersections of ethics, science, and theology can offer mutual enrichment. Scientists can see how research in genetics and biology raises theological questions, while theologians can consider whether and how religious convictions can accommodate new scientific knowledge (Gustafson, 1994). Therefore, the Commission sought to determine the positions on human cloning via somatic cell nuclear transfer held by a variety of religious thinkers and the arguments they offer to support their positions. The Commission was interested in religious arguments and conclusions about human cloning because religious traditions influence and guide many citizens’ responses to various issues in biomedicine, including such novel developments as human cloning. For purposes of recommending public policy in a democratic society, the Commission was also interested in the extent to which moral arguments in various religious traditions rest on premises accessible to others outside those traditions. Sometimes religious thinkers appeal to categories such as “nature,” “reason,” “basic human values,” and “family values” that may speak to citizens outside their traditions because these categories do not necessarily depend solely on particular faith commitments, scripture, revelation, or religious authority. Such categories may therefore contribute to a broader societal discussion of the ethical arguments for and against cloning humans, which are examined further in the following chapter. Indeed, NBAC was interested in determining whether various religious traditions and secular approaches achieve a Much of the material in this chapter is derived from a commissioned paper prepared for the 5 National Bioethics Advisory Commission by Courtney S. Campbell, Department of Philosophy, Oregon State University, titled “Religious Perspectives on Human Cloning.” -40- rough consensus about appropriate public policy toward creating children through somatic cell nuclear transfer at this time. Finally, the views of a wide range of communities, including religious communities, are important in determining whether policies under consideration are feasible and whether their social benefits outweigh their social costs. For example, a particular policy may not be feasible, and may even be counterproductive, if it engenders vigorous, widespread, and sustained moral objection. NBAC solicited oral and written presentations from scholars in several religious traditions, contracted for a scholarly analysis of the views of these and other religious traditions, and 5 received public testimony and written submissions from various other individuals and groups with religious orientations. What follows builds on these materials and presents some of the key themes in several western religious interpretations and evaluations of cloning humans. This chapter is presented in the spirit of sustaining a national dialogue but also in complete awareness that the Commission may not have fully understood the traditions described. (This chapter concentrates on Jewish, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Islamic views; a discussion of other religious views appears in the commissioned paper by Courtney Campbell.) Religion and Human Cloning: An Historical Overview It is possible to identify four recent overlapping periods in which theologians and other religious thinkers have considered the scientific prospects and ethics of the cloning of humans. The first phase, which began in the mid-1960s and continued into the early 1970s, was shaped by a context of expanded choices and control of reproduction (e.g., the availability of the birth control pill), the prospects of alternative, technologically-assisted reproduction (e.g., in vitro fertilization [IVF]), and the advocacy by some biologists and geneticists of cloning “preferred” genotypes, which, in their view, would avoid overloading the human gene pool with genes that are linked to deleterious outcomes and that could place the survival of the human species at risk. Several prominent theologians engaged in these initial discussions of human genetic manipulation and cloning, including Charles Curran, Bernard Häring, Richard McCormick, and Karl Rahner within Roman Catholicism, and Joseph Fletcher and Paul Ramsey within Protestantism. The diametrically opposed positions staked out by the last two theologians gave an early signal of the wide range of views that are still expressed by religious thinkers. Joseph Fletcher advocated expansion of human freedom and control over human reproduction. He portrayed the cloning of humans as one of many present and prospective reproductive options that could be ethically justified by societal benefit. Indeed, for Fletcher, as a method of reproduction, cloning was preferable to the “genetic roulette” of sexual reproduction. -41- He viewed laboratory reproduction as “radically human” because it is deliberate, designed, chosen, and willed (Fletcher, 1971; 1972; 1974; 1979). By contrast, Paul Ramsey portrayed the cloning of humans as a “borderline” or moral boundary that could be crossed only at risk of compromise to humanity and to basic concepts of human procreation. Cloning threatened three “horizontal” (person-person) and two “vertical” (person-God) border crossings. First, clonal reproduction would require directed or managed breeding to serve the scientific ends of a controlled gene pool. Second, it would involve nontherapeutic experimentation on the unborn. Third, it would assault the meaning of parenthood by transforming “procreation” into “reproduction” and by severing the unitive end (expressing and sustaining mutual love) and the procreative end of human sexual expression. Fourth, the cloning of humans would express the sin of pride or hubris. Fifth, it could also be considered a sin of selfcreation as humans aspire to become a “man-God” (Ramsey, 1966; 1970). A second era of theological reflection on cloning humans began in 1978, a year that was notable for two events, the birth in Britain of the first IVF baby, Louise Brown, and the publication of David Rorvik's In His Image, an account alleging (falsely) the creation of the first cloned human being (Rorvik, 1978). Christian theologians concentrated more on the ethical issues raised by IVF, while Jewish scholars, such as Seymour Siegel and Fred Rosner, also directed attention to cloning humans, and were neither as supportive as Fletcher nor as critical as Ramsey. They instead indicated the need for more extensive discussion of this topic within the Jewish community. This period also witnessed the beginning of formal ecclesiastical involvement with questions of genetic manipulation. In 1977 the United Church of Christ produced a study booklet on “Genetic Manipulation,” which appears to be the earliest reference to human cloning among Protestant denominational literature (Lynn, 1977). It provided a general overview of the science and ethics of cloning humans but stopped short of a specific theological verdict. Protestant-organized ecumenical bodies such as the World Council of Churches (1975, 1982, 1989) and the National Council of Churches of Christ (1980, 1983, 1986), as well as some individual denominations, issued resolutions or position statements that cautiously endorsed genetic interventions for therapeutic purposes. In addition, in 1979, concerns about genetic engineering expressed by Jewish, Protestant, and Roman Catholic leaders led President Jimmy Carter to ask the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research to examine the scientific, ethical, and social issues of gene splicing (President's Commission, 1982). The President’s Commission addressed the aspects of “genetic engineering” that use recombinant DNA technology to treat disease, but it did not address other procedures often encompassed by the phrase, such as IVF or cloning organisms. The discussions of the 1970s continued into the 1980s with particular attention to IVF, artificial insemination by donor, and surrogacy. These techniques challenged traditional notions of the family by separating genetic and rearing fatherhood and genetic, gestational, and rearing -42- motherhood, as well as raising questions about whether the contractual and commercial ties in many of these arrangements were inimical to traditional religious views of the family. A third era of religious discussion began in 1993 with the report from George Washington University of the separation of cells in human blastomeres to create multiple, genetically identical embryos. The Roman Catholic Church expressed vigorous opposition to the procedure, and a Vatican editorial denounced the research as “intrinsically perverse.” Catholic moral theologians invoked norms of individuality, dignity, and wholeness in condemning this research (McCormick, 1993; 1994; Shannon, 1994). While many Conservative Protestant scholars held that this research contravened basic notions of personhood such as freedom, the sanctity of life, and the image of God, some other Protestant scholars noted its potential medical benefits and advocated careful regulation rather than prohibition. The fourth and most recent stage of religious discussion has come in the wake of the successful cloning of Dolly the sheep through the somatic cell nuclear transfer technique, as the cloning of a human once again appeared to be a near-term possibility. Several Roman Catholic and Protestant thinkers have reiterated and reinforced past opposition and warnings. For example, Protestant theologian Allen Verhey drew on the arguments initially voiced by Paul Ramsey in concluding that an account of the good life in a family is "inhospitable" to the cloning of humans (Verhey, 1994;1997). However, some Protestant thinkers, in reflecting on the meaning of human partnership with ongoing divine creative activity, have expressed qualified support for cloning research and for creating children using somatic cell nuclear transfer techniques. Likewise, some Jewish and Islamic thinkers encourage continuing laboratory research on animal models and even laboratory work on the possibility of cloning human beings (only in pursuit of a worthy objective), while expressing deep moral reservations, at least at this time, about the transfer of a human embryo obtained by nuclear transfer techniques to a womb for purposes of gestation and birth. Testimony presented to NBAC in public hearings on March 13 and 14, 1997, provides some of the earliest theological statements in this renewed discussion of the ethics of cloning research and of cloning humans. Several conclusions emerge from this brief historical overview: Over the past twenty-five years, theologians have engaged in repeated discussions of the prospect of cloning humans that anticipate and illuminate much current religious discussion of this topic. Theological and ecclesiastical positions on cloning humans are pluralistic in their premises, their modes of argument, and even their conclusions. In short, they exhibit the pluralism characteristic of American religiosity. -43- The religious discussion of cloning humans has connected it closely with on-going debates about technologically-assisted reproduction and genetic interventions. Despite changes in scientific research and technical capability, the values that underlie religious concerns about cloning humans have endured and continue to inform public debate.

In response to the recent introduction of legislation in Congress to prohibit human cloning, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life hosted a “rapid response” discussion of religious perspectives on the issue. Forum Co-Chair Jean Bethke Elshtain explained that the purpose was to allow scientific experts “to address the ethical underpinnings their own religious traditions bring to the issue of human cloning.”

As the possibility of human cloning has moved from science fiction to potential reality, near unanimous public opposition has emerged around the concept of cloning full humans. The issue of allowing the creation of human embryos for use in “therapeutic” research, however, creates more complex levels of support and opposition, even among various religious communities.

Dr. Nigel Cameron, Dean of The Wilberforce Forum, presented an argument for opposition to all types of human cloning based on his conservative Protestant faith and “the supreme Christian belief in incarnation.” The issue of cloning human embryos, he predicted, “will be a proving ground for questions of how we as a race handle human dignity.” Robert Best, President of the Culture of Life Foundation, joined him in expressing concern for “the sacredness of all human life, from conception to death.”

Rabbi Moses Tendler, Professor of Jewish Medical Ethics and Biology at Yeshiva University shared their opposition to full human cloning, but drew on theology to come to a much different conclusion about the benefits of human cloning for “therapeutic” research. Tendler argued that humans have an obligation to cure disease and that “every few generations, God allows us to remove one veil of ignorance and we get a little smarter.” Responding to other religious traditions that teach that all human embryos are entitled to full moral rights, Tendler noted that “not all religions…accept the notion that a zygote in a petri dish has personhood.”

Tendler explained that the Judeo view of personhood is that it begins 40 days after conception. This is an idea shared by Sunni Muslims, according to Professor Abdulaziz Sachedina, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. For this reason, Sachedina expressed less concern about the use of embryos for research, but warned the audience that fully cloned humans would “pose challenges to important human relationships” and disrupt traditional “communal connections.”

A recent poll presented by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press revealed that 81% of Americans are opposed to allowing “unrestricted scientific research related to human cloning” and that respondents most often cite their religious belief as having the strongest influence on this view.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life serves as a both a town hall and a clearinghouse of information, providing independent research, new polling information, balanced analysis, and referrals to experts in the field. In addition, the Pew Forum provides a place to draw together many perspectives for fruitful exchange of ideas. The Pew Forum is nonpartisan and does not take policy positions. It is supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts through a grant to Georgetown University.

Human cloning has recently entered the public sphere as a contentious issue and religious groups have spoken out in opposition to these technologies. To date, there has been no research to specifically determine whether the laity agrees with the positions of the leadership or to more generally sort out the views of the religious public on the issue of cloning. In this article I examine two relatively unknown public opinion polls that included questions on both cloning and the religious identity, practices, and beliefs of the respondent. I find that evangelicals are more opposed to cloning than the rest of the public and are more likely to see cloning as a religious issue. I explore these relationships further with a survey from one denomination and find that it is not ignorance of science that results in opposition to cloning, but—at least for the evangelicals—a desire to keep religion and science distinct. I conclude with suggestions for how future researchers can build upon this first limited opinion data.

Discussion and Conclusion

In my discussions with religious leaders, media persons and scientists in India and South East Asia, including the discussions at the WHO Forum, I found three categories of peoples: The first, the religious fundamentalists, who are basically against any embryo experiments as in interferes in the realm of God's creative areas. The second is the section of a secular group who feels that scientist should be given full freedom of independent research and religion should not interfere. The there is a mid-section of moderates who are not against scientific research of genetics and human lives. They are for all kind of research at the cellular level in cloning. They will not hesitate to resort to human cloning in certain extreme cases. For example, procreation of a child in a family where father suffers from aspermia or to replace a dying child of as widowed mother.

Personally, I tend to agree with these moderates but we should be very careful to avoid human cloning to guard against potential abuses or make a tragic twist in our genetic experiments. There should be an authorized body to meticulously guard and control these procedures and avoid human degradation.

At the WHO meeting, the consensus of the discussion group was for scientific research at the cellular level, but not normally for human reproductive cloning. There might be rare exceptions considered if under strict control of an authorized body.