Human Cloning

Message / Question what's wrong with cloning humans? if anything that's artificial is wrong, then isn't all of modern science wrong? how do you know that god didnt make you smart enough to DO all this??

Response

This is a complex issue and I can only attempt to address it here in a very limited way.

First, it must be understood that cloning of a human being requires both DNA and embryo cells, thus requires human embryos to be used, with several embryos needing to be destroyed (killed) in order to obtain the required DNA. So essentially, cloning “throws away” some human embryos as “waste material” eliminating the chance for those embryos to grow into full maturity. This raises the issue of when life starts – at what point does “humanness” begin. Many people believe that life does not begin at conception (embryos are not really human beings, just “potential” human beings). I certainly reject such a notion and believe that humanness begins at conception i.e. from the moment of conception, the zygote (then consequently the embryo – the unborn child) is an eternal human being and, as such, is a life that is “sacred”. The Bible refers to God’s calling of Isaiah while he was still in his mother’s womb, John the Baptist was even filled with the Holy Spirit while he was still in utero.

We are not just a collection of molecules and chemicals, we are beings created by God to reflect His image; I therefore consider human cloning, with its destruction of human embryos, is not an acceptable moral practice. We are not our own ultimate authority and thus we cannot legitimately make decisions about the value of human life. That is why I believe that Christian ethics rules out such practices as human cloning, abortion and euthanasia.