catapult magazine

This may not fit in this category as well as some other issues, but since there are no Science/Technology discussion areas, and since no one has posted here yet I will be the first.

Maybe we are all in consensous, but what are your thoughts on cloning human embroys? Should human cloning be considered bad if holds the potential for some fantastic medical advances?

Are you talking about stem cell research or cloning an actual human being?

We could disscuss either Human Cloning or Stem Cell research, but I posted the question with stem cell research in mind.

Mind if I tackle general human cloning first?

It has always seemed to me that the moral outrage is predicated upon two false presuppositions. First, that if human beings clone other human beings, we are creating life. Of course, we are not doing so, merely taking life that exisits already and multiplying it — soemthing we have been doing from the start :).

Second, that if we clone a human being it will be an exact duplicate of the human it was cloned from, thus eliminating the wonderful diversity God has given us. That, it seems to me, is also wrong. It, in turn, presupposes that we are the sum and substance of our genetic material and no more. Obviously, though, if we look at identical twins, this is not the case. Identical twins come from the same egg — the exact same genetic material, yet their environments can shape them differently.

So I don’t think cloning, per se, is morally wrong. I do think we need to do a bit more thinking about what a clone’s legal status would be (I’d propose we treat them as a child of the person from whom they were clones) and take steps to insure they become neither corporate slaves nor personal ones (imagine the bidding for clones of supermodels — but imagine too what such an environment would do to a person.) Creating embryos to mine for organs sounds questionable to me, but if I lost a child before birth, I would donate that material if it could help others — just as I intend to donate my own body when I die.

Maybe a way to see it would be that, while human cloning is not bad in and of itself, humans themselves are usually bad and so we must be careful.

Thank-you for your comments BBC.

The twin and gene expression arguments certainly open up the possibility for human cloning in the future, but the high risk of death for the embryo due to poor techiniques and procedures seems to pose a problem. If we consider human embryo’s to have moral status as human being, then experimenting on them with the high risk of death seems contrary to our constitution. Multiplying life is less risky through more natural means. Research needs to continue, but it should not include human subjects as of yet.

Stem cell research using embryo’s will pose similar problems if embryo’s are given full moral status. Invasive tachniques into bone marrow and spinal fluid is the other option. Sure these cells will divide similar to a zygote, but the natural process of reproduction is not present. Technically we cannot distinguish the blastula (4 cell stage, if I remember right) formed from adult stem cells from the the blastula formed by stem cells in an embryo, so maybe the process by which this blastula is formed should be given more weight.

Well said, Aron,

I think I am too much used to some of my high school students reacting with Chrisitan outrage at the notion of cloning itself. In this, and in many other things, it seems to me that we might best be rational and specific about our objections. I don’t think that cloning as such is morally wrong — but certainly we need to begin by conferring full human status on any human clones created. If you start with that premise, then the objections you raise are significant and profound. The objection there though would not be that the notion of cloning is wrong, but that (1) attempting to clone and, as a result, killing God’s creation that you have been entrusted with bringing to full term is wrong, and (2) anyone trying to deny an image-bearer of God his or her most basic rights is wrong.

It seems to me that too often Christians come across as hysterical parrots shouting “Cloning is wrong! Cloning is wrong.” without taking it any further. That frustrates me because we have more tools to think things through than those who don’t have the whole picture.

i should probably put this under a whole new topic, but it kinda relates.

if human cloning isn’t wrong (and i agree w/ you) are there any problems with genetic modification?

I guess I don’t see any problems with the idea of it — any more than i have a problem with humans developing glasses to compensate for bad eyesight, or microscopes and telescopes to augment good eyesight.

The reality of it brings up a couple of potential problems. First, genetic modification of humans has great potential for inequality. If this technology is available based on who can pay for it, for example, you could fairly soon have a group of rich, young, healthy, beautiful, super-strong, disease-resistant folks on the one hand, and a bunch of poor, unhealthy, normal-strength, disease receptive folk on the other. This seems to me a great potential problem.

Secondly, if there isn’t an incredible amount of testing done first (and maybe even if there is) the potential for side effects we hadn’t considered is incredible. The body is a system. Altering any part of it affects everything else. As you move up the scale of sophistication, the potential for benefit grows, but so does the potential for disaster. To go back to the example of glasses again, if my glasses give me a headcahe, I can just take them off. On the other hand, if my genetically modified musculature is requiring more blood than my heart can pump, that may be a bit more tricky. Worse yet, if the altered gene that increases my muscle mass also leads to increased aggression, the effects on society could be pretty extreme.

My ideal scenario would be to avoid the ethically dubious situation of using embryos to get stem cells.

Some now offer cord banks where one can medically preserve one’s child’s umbilical cord with its young stem cells for possible future theraputic use. Research this option if you are going to have children. Might be a good idea.

ideal would be if we could somehow grow just organs and not the whole package (i.e. a whole human who is then cut up for organs).[/b:f2d11f74ea]

I have also heard of baby teeth as a source for young stem cells.

disturbs me is the big push to use embryos or aborted children. We are letting our technology (once again) get ahead of our ethics. Another reason to “justify” abortion, too.[/b:f2d11f74ea] It seems promising that we soon may be able to grow organs as opposed to the whole human. Thus (for most of us) the whole ethical quagmire is avoided. Most would not confer human status on a heart, a lung growing independently.