Are Scientists Playing God?

It Depends on Your Religion By JOHN TIERNEY Published: November 20, 2007 Correction Appended Now that biologists in Oregon have reported using cloning to produce a monkey embryo and extract stem cells, it looks more plausible than before that a human embryo will be cloned and that, some day, a cloned human will be born. But not necessarily on this side of the Pacific. American and European researchers have made most of the progress so far in biotechnology. Yet they still face one very large obstacle God, as defined by some Western religions. While critics on the right and the left fret about the morality of stemcell research and genetic engineering, prominent Western scientists have been going to Asia, like the geneticists Nancy Jenkins and Neal Copeland, who left the National Cancer Institute and moved last year to Singapore. Asia offers researchers new labs, fewer restrictions and a different view of divinity and the afterlife. In South Korea, when Hwang Woo Suk reported creating human embryonic stem cells through cloning, he did not apologize for offending religious taboos. He justified cloning by citing his Buddhist belief in recycling life through reincarnation. When Dr. Hwangs claim was exposed as a fraud, his research was supported by the head of South Koreas largest Buddhist order, the Rev. Ji Kwan. The monk said research with embryos was in accord with Buddhas precepts and urged Korean scientists not to be guided by Western ethics. Asian religions worry less than Western religions that biotechnology is about playing God, says Cynthia Fox, the author of Cell of Cells, a book about the global race among stem-cell researchers. Therapeutic cloning in particular jibes well with the Buddhist and Hindu ideas of reincarnation. You can see this East-West divide in maps drawn up by Lee M. Silver, a molecular biologist at Princeton. Dr. Silver, who analyzes clashes of spirituality and science in his book Challenging Nature, has been charting biotechnology policies around the world and trying to make spiritual sense of whos afraid of what. Most of southern and eastern Asia displays relatively little opposition to either cloned embryonic stem-cell research or genetically modified crops. China, India, Singapore and other countries have enacted laws supporting embryo cloning for medical research (sometimes called therapeutic cloning, as opposed to reproductive cloning intended to recreate an entire human being). Genetically modified crops are grown in China, India and elsewhere. In Europe, though, genetically modified crops are taboo. Cloning human embryos for research has been legally supported in England and several other countries, but it is banned in more than a dozen others, including France and Germany.

In North and South America, genetically altered crops are widely used. But embryo cloning for research has been banned in most countries, including Brazil, Canada and Mexico. It has not been banned nationally in the United States, but the research is ineligible for federal financing, and some states have outlawed it. Dr. Silver explains these patterns by dividing spiritual believers into three broad categories. The first, traditional Christians, predominate in the Western Hemisphere and some European countries. The second, which he calls post-Christians, are concentrated in other European countries and parts of North America, especially along the coasts. The third group are followers of Eastern religions. Most people in Hindu and Buddhist countries, Dr. Silver says, have a root tradition in which there is no single creator God. Instead, there may be no gods or many gods, and there is no master plan for the universe. Instead, spirits are eternal and individual virtue karma determines what happens to your spirit in your next life. With some exceptions, this view generally allows the acceptance of both embryo research to support life and genetically modified crops. By contrast, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is the master creator who gives out new souls to each individual human being and gives humans dominion over soul-less plants and animals. To traditional Christians who consider an embryo to be a human being with a soul, it is wrong for scientists to use cloning to create human embryos or to destroy embryos in the course of research. But there is no such taboo against humans applying cloning and genetic engineering to lower animals and plants. As a result, Dr. Silver says, cloned animals and genetically modified crops have not become a source of major controversy for traditional Christians. PostChristians are more worried about the flora and fauna. Many Europeans, as well as leftists in America, Dr. Silver says, have rejected the traditional Christian God and replaced it with a post-Christian goddess of Mother Nature and a modified Christian eschatology. It isnt a coherent belief system. It might or might not incorporate New Age thinking. But deep down, theres a view that humans shouldnt be tampering with the natural world. Hence the opposition to genetically modified food. Because post-Christians do not necessarily share the biblical view of an omnipotent deity with the sole power to create souls, Dr. Silver says, they are less worried about scientists playing God in the laboratory with embryos. In places like California, residents have voted not only to allow embryo cloning for research, but also to finance it. But sometimes the reverence for the natural world extends to embryos, leading to unlikely alliances. When conservative intellectuals like Francis Fukuyama campaigned for Congress to ban embryo cloning, some environmental activists like Jeremy Rifkin joined them. A Green Party leader in Germany, Voker Beck, referred to cloned embryonic stem-cell research as veiled cannibalism. Of course, many critics of biotechnology do not explicitly use religious dogma to justify their opposition. Countries like the United States, after all, are supposed to be guided by secular constitutions, not sectarian creeds. So opponents of genetically modified foods focus on

the possible dangers to ecosystems and human health, and committees of scientists try to resolve the debate by conducting risk analysis. The outcome hinges more on beliefs than on scientific data. A study finding that genetically modified foods are safe might reassure traditional Christians in Kansas, but it wont stop post-Christians in Stockholm from worrying about Frankenfood. Similarly, some leading opponents of embryo research for cloning, like Leon Kass, say they are defending not Judeo-Christian beliefs, but human dignity. Dr. Kass, former chairman of the Presidents Council on Bioethics, says the special status of humans described in the Book of Genesis should be heeded not because of the Bibles authority, but because the message reflects a cosmological truth. It is not so easy, though, to defend supposedly self-evident truths about human nature that are not evident to a large portion of humanity. Conservatives in the House of Representatives managed to pass a bill banning Americans from going overseas for stem-cell treatments derived through embryo cloning. But the bill didnt pass the Senate. It is by no means certain that this type of stem-cell research will ever yield treatments for diseases like Parkinsons, but should that happen, it is hard to see how any Congress or any law could stop people from seeking cures. The prospect of cloning children is much more distant, particularly now that researchers are becoming optimistic about obtaining stem cells without using embryos. For now, scientists throughout the world say they do not even want to contemplate reproductive cloning because of the risks to the child. And public-opinion polls do not show much support for it anywhere. Even if human cloning becomes safe, there may never be much demand for it, because most people will prefer having children the oldfashioned way. But some people may desperately want a cloned child perhaps to replace one who died or to provide lifesaving bone marrow for a sibling and wont be dissuaded, no matter how many Christians or post-Christians try to stop them. To reach this frontier, they may just go east. Correction: November 23, 2007 The Findings column in Science Times on Tuesday, about the different views of biotechnology in Eastern and Western religions, misspelled the surname of a political economist and author who has lobbied Congress to ban embryo cloning. He is Francis Fukuyama, not Fukyama. What is Human Cloning? Cloning an organism involves replicating the DNA of that organism in a new organism that, as a result, has the exact features and characteristics. Human Cloning would mean recreating the person that is being cloned. With the successful cloning of Dolly The Sheep, Human Cloning, long the staple of science fiction, is on the verge of becoming a reality. How would Human Cloning work? Human Cloning, if it is ever done, will be carried out by the same method that brought forth Dolly, Reproductive Cloning.

In Reproductive Cloning, the nucleus is removed from a body cell of the organism to be cloned and this nucleus is inserted into an enucleated egg, that is, an egg whose nucleus has previously been removed. The egg with the new nucleus is then treated to electric or chemical treatment to simulate cell division. The resulting embryo is transferred to a host uterus to develop properly and eventually be given birth to. The new-born organism will be a replica of the original organism, but not the exact, since it will have DNA derived from both the organism as well as the egg. Why would Human Cloning be done? Cloning animals, especially endangered species, is one way of preserving the species from dying out entirely. But why would anyone want to clone human beings? There are enough of us already on the planet without resources enough for the well-being of all of us. So why bother to clone? Well, one reason is pure scientific research. We've already come a long way. After Dolly, scientists have managed to clone various animals. So cloning humans seems the next logical step and a very important one it would be too. Cloning humans could also prove a major breakthrough as far as cloning for therapeutic purposes is concerned. Cloning could be used to produce new organs for organ transplants. Since the cloned organ, produced from a body cell of the person needing the transplant, would have the same genetic code, there would be less risk of the body rejecting the new, transplanted organ. Cloning could also be used to treat Cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases, and host of other illnesses. Cloning would allow infertile couples to have their own genetic offspring or otherwise normal couples to order designer babies. It could also be used to bring back to life your dead ancestors. So if you want to give birth to your great-great-grandmother, you can. Just as long you managed to preserve some samples of her body cells. One American couple reportedly is willing to pay $500,000 to clone their dead infant daughter. And then there are some who would like to clone themselves and thereby achieve eternal life. Is it ethical to go ahead and clone humans? Well, sometimes one of a kind is more than one can tolerate. But, on the serious side, many of the leading Scientists involved in cloning research, like Ian Wilmut and Richard Gardner, have expressed serious doubts and ethical dilemmas over the cloning of human beings. Firstly, reproductive cloning is not yet a fool-proof method. It took 272 attempts before Dolly was produced. This means 272 embryos either failed to develop properly or were discarded as defective. In other cases, if the embryos weren't miscarried, a large percentage of the animals born showed a high degree of abnormality and died quickly or had to be euthanized. Those successfully cloned have shown many health problems and none have lived to a ripe old age so far.

Now, since human beings consider themselves a class apart, obviously many moral problems would arise with treating defective human embryos or new-born, handicapped babies in the very same manner. There is also no way of predicting what the intelligence level and capabilities of a human clone would be. What would be the psychological and societal implications for it as an individual? What kind of a life or future would it have? Since we don't know, many people consider it unethical to go ahead and clone. But that argument doesn't hold much water with others. After all, we have no way of knowing exactly what sort of a person a normally conceived embryo will turn out to be either Science bodies urge support for 'therapeutic cloning' Katie Mantell 22 September 2003 | EN More than 60 science academies from every continent have called on the United Nations to adopt a ban on human reproductive cloning. But they urge against outlawing 'therapeutic cloning' the creation of cloned embryos solely to obtain stem cells to treat a variety of diseases. Their call comes a week before a meeting of the UN Committee on Cloning in New York, which is set to debate a proposal by Costa Rica for a universal ban on both forms of cloning. In a statement issued today, the InterAcademy Panel on International Issues (IAP), which represents scientific academies worldwide, says that reproductive human cloning aimed at reproducing full human beings is "irresponsible" given the current level of scientific knowledge. "There are strong purely scientific and biological reasons why we should outlaw reproductive cloning", in additional to the ethical objections that many have against it, says Robert May, president of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom's national academy. For example, research on reproductive cloning in other mammals shows high rates of foetal disorders and loss throughout pregnancy, and of malformation and death among newborns. But therapeutic cloning, the IAP statement argues, "has considerable potential from a scientific perspective." In particular, many scientists say that the technique could eventually help in the treatment of degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and diabetes. It argues that individual nations should be allowed to decide whether or not to allow such research. Many nations at the UN meeting next week are expected to push for a universal ban on all forms of cloning. Last November, UN talks on the treaty on human cloning were put on hold because of a failure to agree on whether or not to include therapeutic cloning in the ban. France and Germany originally proposed a ban in 2001 in response to Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori's announcement that he intended to clone a human baby. They limited their proposal to human reproductive cloning on the grounds that there was general consensus that this should be outlawed.

But last year a group of more than 30 countries, led by the United States, Spain and the Philippines refused to support any ban unless it included therapeutic cloning. They argued that therapeutic cloning is unethical, and that it would be difficult to enforce a ban on reproductive cloning alone if therapeutic cloning in laboratories was permitted. "Opinions on the ethics of therapeutic cloning in different countries are divided," said May. "It would be a tragedy if we allowed disagreements on therapeutic cloning to jeopardise a convention that would ensure that human reproductive cloning is outlawed across the globe." Cloning is great. If God made the original, then making copies should be fine. Doug Coupland Cloning looks like a degrading of parenthood and a perversion of the right relation between parents and children. Leon Kass Cloning represents a very clear, powerful, and immediate example in which we are in danger of turning procreation into manufacture. Leon Kass Cloning will enable mankind to reach eternal life. Claude Vorilhon Cloning, wow. Who would have thought? There should be a list of people who can and cannot clone themselves. Ted Danson During this period, I became interested in how the new techniques of cloning and sequencing DNA could influence the study of genetics and I was an early and active proponent of the Human Genome Sequencing Project. Sydney Brenner Human cloning is coming. Mike Pence I am in favor of stem-cell research. I am not in favor of creating new human embryos through cloning. Mitt Romney I don't believe that efforts to prohibit only so-called reproductive cloning can be successful. Leon Kass I think we can allow the therapeutic uses of nuclear transplant technology, which we call cloning, without running the danger of actually having live human beings born. David Baltimore Ads by Google Cell Symposia Genetics and Chemistry Sharing a Language of Discovery cell-symposia-geneticsandchemistry.com

I've been opposed to human cloning from the very beginning. Leon Kass If one is seriously interested in preventing reproductive cloning, one must stop the process before it starts. Leon Kass In cloning, in contrast, reproduction is asexual - the cloned child is the product not of two but of one. Leon Kass In early January I introduced my legislation, which, besides prohibiting Federal funding of human cloning, also expresses the sense of Congress that foreign nations should establish total prohibition on human cloning as well. Cliff Stearns It's very hard to make arguments about the effects of cloning on family relations if family relations are in tatters. Leon Kass Many other countries have already banned human cloning, and there are efforts at the UN to make such a ban universal. Leon Kass Royalty is either going to do very well with cloning, or it's going to disappear completely. Doug Coupland The argument has been made in Congress that it is slippery slope if you allow therapeutic, what people people are calling therapeutic cloning, then you will get reproductive cloning. David Baltimore The basic premise of this is that, yes, people have learned to clone each other, but that cloning is illegal. Not that it's bad, just that the law as it is now, is that if you die, you're dead. Roger Spottiswoode The bill would ban human cloning, and any attempts at human cloning, for both reproductive purposes and medical research. Also forbidden is the importing of cloned embryos or products made from them. Ken Calvert

human being out of your DNA and a donor egg. Mary Tyler Moore We are not interested in cloning the Michael Jordans and the Michael Jacksons of this world. The rich and the famous don't participate in this. Panayiotis Zavos We've had cloning in the South for years. It's called cousins. Robin Williams While that amendment failed, human cloning continues to advance and the breakthrough in this unethical and morally questionable science is around the corner. Mike Pence QUOTES ON CLONING In recent weeks we learned that scientists have created human embryos in test tubes solely to experiment on them. This is deeply troubling, and a warning sign that should prompt all of us to think through these issues very carefully. We recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts or creating life for our convenience. I strongly oppose cloning. And while we must devote enormous energy to conquering disease, it is equally important that we pay attention to the moral concerns raised by the new frontier of human embryo stem cell research. Even the most noble ends do not justify any means. GEORGE W. BUSH, radio address, Aug. 11, 2001 Abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, for example, risk reducing the human person to a mere object: life and death to order, as it were! POPE JOHN PAUL II, speech, Jan. 13, 2003 Banning human cloning reflects our humanity. It is the right thing to do. Creating a child through this new method calls into question our most fundamental beliefs. It has the potential to threaten the sacred family bonds at the very core of our ideals and our society. At its worst, it could lead to misguided and malevolent attempts to select certain traits, even to create certain kind of children -- to make our children objects rather than cherished individuals. BILL CLINTON, speech, June 9, 1997 President Bush and Bill Clinton both agree that cloning is morally wrong. Clinton said that he thinks humans should be made the oldfashioned way -- liquored up in a cheap hotel room. JAY LENO, The Tonight Show Anybody who objects to cloning on principle has to answer to all the identical twins in the world who might be insulted by the thought that there is something offensive about their very existence. Clones are simply identical twins. RICHARD DAWKINS, BBC interview, Jan. 31, 1999 HUMAN CLONING: Comments by political groups, religious authorities...

The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers. Lewis Thomas The people who make policy decisions should damned well know what they are talking about before they make the decisions. There is nobody who is an expert on cloning who would be afraid after seeing Attack of the Clones. Kevin J. Anderson There are two kinds of cloning right now. One is therapeutic cloning which is for coming up with cures for life threatening, really, really awful diseases. Then there is reproductive cloning, which is to make a

Comments by individuals, and political groups: A 1997-FEB CNN poll conducted among 1,005 American adults has a margin of error of 3%. They found: 93% felt that cloning humans is a bad idea 66% felt that cloning animals, such as sheep, is a bad idea 69% are scared of the possibility of cloning humans 74% believe that human cloning is against God's will; 19% say that it is not. 8 A subsequent Time/CNN poll, conducted on 2001-FEB found: 90% felt that cloning humans was a bad idea 67% felt that cloning animals, such as sheep, was a bad idea. 45% believe that it will be possible to clone a human within the next ten years. 69% believe that human cloning is against God's will; 23% say that it is not. 9 Time.com did not indicate the margin of error of this poll. These data need to be taken with a grain of salt. When people think of cloning, many, perhaps most, recall a horror movie, like The Boys from Brazil which involved the creation of clones of Hitler for evil purposes. They may well be reacting emotionally, without a great deal of information to base their opinion on. Richard Nicholson of the British Bulletin of Medical Ethics said that cloning research may well be "sowing the seeds of our destruction." The Libertarian Party believes that cloning "is one of the 'most exciting and important scientific breakthroughs of the 20th Century' and should not be prohibited by the government." Chairman Steve Dasbach said "Politicians should not have veto power over the creation of new life -- especially human life...That's why the Libertarian Party supports reproductive freedom of choice for Americans -- whether they choose to reproduce using the traditional method, or artificial insemination, or in-vitro fertilization, or cloning...If cloning research is banned, millions of people could suffer." In 1997-FEB, Carl Felbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization said: "One of the prospects should not be, perhaps should never be, the extension of this technique to human beings...Now that it may be possible we would say its should be prohibited if necessary by law." 8 Stephen Grebe, an associate professor of biology at American University in Washington said:"We're going to be facing this issue with humans...With that possibility open, I'm concerned without adequate safeguards [that] this will become a reality. It may very well already be." 8 Jesse Rainbow, a university sophomore, lists reasons why some people have a knee-jerk aversion to embryo cloning: 3 A clone would not be a "real human": But a clone would

have exactly the same status that an identical twin already does. Both are derived from a single fertilized ovum. Cloning is "playing God": They have visions of Dr. Frankenstein creating life from inanimate matter. But "cloning creates life from life" and is just an extension of routine in vitro fertilization procedures. Cloning is not "natural": People have very different views of what is "natural". Embryo cloning still depends on a human egg from a woman and sperm from a man. Human embryo cloning just tweaks apart a zygote at the two cell stage, changing a single two-cell form of life into two one-cell forms of life. One can argue that God did not intend cloning to be done. But the same argument was used, largely in the past, to oppose such techniques as in vitro fertilization. It all depends upon what one is used to, and what one considers to be "natural." Cloning denies the "sanctity of human life":

They envision a person cloning themselves so that the clone could be robbed for a needed organ. This argument is irrelevant; one has to separate possible abuses of a technology from the debate over whether a technology is moral. Quantum physics is not immoral because it has been used to design nuclear weapons.
Katharina Wilson describes a misuse of cloning that she believes is going on today at one or more secret underground US government bases. She believes that scientists are cloning humans.4,5 After the experiments are over, the women are used as prostitutes. When the researchers and military personnel are finished with them, they are killed. She claims to have seen two women at a secret base who were clones of herself. (In an unrelated event, she recalls having experienced a sexually intimate contact with an alien being). Similar stories of clones associated with UFOs and Extra-terrestrial beings have materialized in the last few years. Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington DC, leads a coalition of 300 religious and ethics organizations from around the world. He proposes a worldwide ban on human cloning, saying that it should carry a penalty "on a par with rape, child abuse and murder." 11 Randolfe Wicker founded Clone Rights United Front in 1997JUL. About 15 members of the group demonstrated in New York city on 1997-JUL-19 in protest of a New York state bill that would criminalize human cloning. Wicker said: "We're fighting for research, and we're defending people's reproductive rights...I realize my clone would be my identical twin, and my identical twin has a right to be born." Ann Northrop, a columnist for LGNY (a New York gay/lesbian newspaper), said that human cloning is of interest to gays and lesbians: "...in a time when we're afraid that discovery of a genetic basis [for homosexuality] would lead to people aborting us, cloning would be a way of surviving...this [cloning] has the potential of giving women complete control over reproduction...a stunning possibility that could, carried to its logical extreme,

eliminate men altogether." Kim Mills of Human Rights Campaign (a gay/lesbian civil rights group) has not taken a position on human cloning. "The gay community is a diverse community...There are many different voices." High school senior Michelle Greenwald has prepared a website called "Human Cloning" as a senior class project at: http://www.geocities.com/ We've got ninety-nine per cent the same genes as any other person. We've got ninety per cent the same as a chimpanzee. We've got thirty percent the same as a lettuce. Does that cheer you up at all? I love about the lettuce. It makes me feel I belong. CARYL CHURCHILL The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behavior control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers Lewis Thomas Genetic engineers don't make new genes, they rearrange existing ones. Thomas E. Lovejoy A disquieting era of genetic manipulation is coming, one that may revolutionize human capacities, and notions of health. If we treat moral scruples impatiently, as inherently retrograde in a scientifically advancing civilization, we will not be in moral trim when, soon, our very humanity depends on our being in trim. George F. Will Natural species are the library from which genetic engineers can work. Thomas E. Lovejoy Humans have long since possessed the tools for crafting a better world. Where love, compassion, altruism and justice have failed, genetic manipulation will not succeed. GINA MARANTO I see nothing wrong ethically with the idea of correcting single gene defects [through genetic engineering]. But I am concerned about any other kind of intervention, for anything else would be an experiment, [which would] impose our will on future generations [and take unreasonable chances] with their welfare ... [Thus] such intervention is beyond the scope of consideration. Ian Wilmut The pressures for human cloning are powerful; but, although it seems likely that somebody, at some time, will attempt it, we need not assume that it will ever become a common or significant feature of human life. Ian Wilmut

The advance of genetic engineering makes it quite conceivable that we will begin to design our own evolutionary progress. ISAAC ASIMOV Even minor tampering with nature is apt to bring serious consequences, as did the introduction of a single chemical (DDT). Genetic engineering is tampering on a monumental scale, and nature will surely exact a heavy toll for this trespass. EVA NOVOTNY

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