Medical Science

Cloning

Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD.”
—Genesis 4:1

Kornelius Fil

In the spring of 1997 people all around the globe heard the news that a sheep named Dolly had been cloned. This information raised interest in this particular animal as well as in the whole process of cloning. Before this event, cloning was an umbrella term used by scientists to describe different processes for duplicating biological material. Now the term is well known even to elementary school children; when used by the media the term usually is used in the sense of reproductive cloning, which means producing a genetically identical copy of another organism. This whole event became a catalyst for a wide-scale debate on the ethics of cloning, in which both political factions and Christian churches were strongly engaged. It resulted in new laws being introduced in most developed countries.

What should be our attitude toward these events? To answer this question we need to have basic information on what cloning is.

Our body contains trillions of cells. The center of each cell is the nucleus that holds genetic information coded in DNA, the “blueprint” specifying the structure and functions of our whole body. Although our body contains cells in various shapes and sizes depending on their functions, all contain the same genetic information, the same DNA. One of the exceptions to this rule is the male and female reproductive cells. These contain only half of the typical cell’s quantity of DNA. During fertilization these cells fuse to form a zygote, the first cell of a new organism, which again contains the “full” amount of DNA: half are from the father’s reproductive cell and the other half from the mother’s. During the formation of reproductive cells various processes take place to mix the genetic material. That is why each of us has unique DNA and why we are genetically different individuals. One exception is a case of identical twins; the DNA of each twin is exactly the same. That is because each originates from a single zygote, the cell that at the beginning of its existence split into two, or rarely even more, parts initiating the growth of further organisms. Cloning resembles this process which is why it can be referred to as natural cloning.

Dolly the sheep was cloned using a process known as somatic cell nuclear transfer. The nucleus of an unfertilized sheep egg was replaced with the nucleus of another cell, which belonged to the “mother” of Dolly (actually in this case it was more like an older genetic twin). By doing this, the moment of fertilization can be omitted: the egg acts as a zygote which, when placed in the proper condition found in the uterine cavity, divides and forms an embryo. That embryo can be implanted in the uterine wall and after some time forms a normal fetus. This procedure is not as simple as this brief description might imply. Dolly took 267 attempts of nuclear transfer just to create one clone. Dolly was not the first cloned sheep. Another had been cloned before but in a process that used nuclei from embryo cells. The first cloned animals were frogs, and that happened in the 1950s. What was so unusual about Dolly was that she was cloned from a nucleus from an adult sheep’s udder cell, a specialized cell. To create an entire organism, the nucleus had to reverse its differentiation to use its full genetic information. So far, at least eight mammal species have been cloned; Dolly is certainly the best known.

Human Cloning

Could the same thing be done with human beings? Theoretically, it can. But it is still a long way from theory to reality. First, the development of an egg cell with an implanted nucleus into a multi-cellular organism is protected by various, poorly-known mechanisms. That is why numerous attempts to clone many species result in failure. The cloned frogs never advanced beyond the stage of a tadpole for what are still unknown reasons, though the research has lasted several decades. Another flaw of cloning is low efficiency. In the cloning of Dolly the efficiency ratio was 1:267, a number that is below 0.4%. The amount of research and expense connected with cloning is not justified by the results, as scientists get only, at most, two living offspring for every hundred experiments.

Assuming it would be the same with human clones, this means one surviving human clone would also produce the death of many embryos that never developed. Furthermore, about a third of the cloned animals are affected by a “large offspring syndrome” meaning parts of their body, sometimes even the whole organism, is abnormally large. This state is not only a threat for the life of the clone but also for its surrogate mother in whose womb the clone is growing. Cloned animals have a higher rate of infections and tumors. Because of a lung tumor and advanced arthritis, Dolly was euthanized at the age of six, barely half the average life span of a Finn Dorset ewe. It is probable that Dolly may have been suffering from premature aging, possibly caused by the fact her DNA was six years old at the moment of birth (that was the age of the genetic material’s donor). The same problems cloned animals face are likely to be found in human cloning.

More importantly, we do not know what impact cloning has on mental development. This may not be important in the case of animals, but surely it is for healthy human beings, unless of course mankind wants to pay to support multitudes of disabled people which could likely be the result of human cloning. With all the unknowns associated with human cloning, no responsible scientist or physician currently supports the idea to do it. Even the researchers from the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Dolly was cloned, warn of trying to do it. That is why human cloning is illegal in the USA and all the European countries, even for medical research (the United Kingdom is the only exception). Nevertheless claims have been made that the first human beings have already been cloned. Although there is no evidence to substantiate such claims, experts admit that given the pace of human cloning research and the commitment to the project, even if such news is false, we will likely see clones born soon, unfortunately with huge physical and emotional risks to the babies created.

Why Clone Humans?

Why would anyone want to clone a human being? Some see cloning as a way to bring deceased people back to life. These might be parents or children who die prematurely. But can cloning really bring back life? Of course not! Only the heavenly Father and his son possess that power, and they will use it at the right time to bring forth everyone from out of their graves. Were one to successfully clone a person who had just died, the result would only be a genetic copy of that person, a “twin” separated in time and experience by a specific number of years and multitudinous life-shaping events.

Perhaps some like the idea of cloning to duplicate those with exceptional abilities, geniuses with a sharp mind or people with unique physical abilities resulting in great achievements in sports. This sounds terrifying since the natural development of a child is full of surprises as to character, temper and abilities. Do we want a breeding program in which only exceptional individuals are produced and channeled into specific purposes?

Some see cloning as a way to aid couples with infertility problems. Infertility is a serious problem among some married couples, but surely not to be solved using such doubtful techniques. Cloning would only provide an identical genetic resemblance to one of the parents, making the child more like an identical twin. It parodies the well-known verse, “In [the] place of your fathers will be your sons” (Psalm 45:16). Although full of hardships, the best way for a Christian couple to solve the problem of their inability to procreate is to adopt children who do not have parents to care for them.

These reasons for reproductive cloning show it is mainly egocentrism that leads people to consider doing it.

Ignoring God’s Laws

A problem arises when, in order to achieve a goal, God’s law and advice must be ignored. The desire to learn about the world and the principles by which it is ruled turns into “pride of life,” one of Satan’s tools to subdue mankind (1 John 2:16,17). Eve was enticed into tasting the forbidden fruit when the “serpent” told her a partial truth: “The day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). Moreover, “The woman saw … that the tree was desirable to make one wise” (Genesis 3:6).

The adversary tempted our Lord using the same methods. He tried to get Jesus to do a simple thing just to demonstrate that he was capable of doing it, that he had the power. Satan wanted Jesus to cast himself from the top of the temple; he even quoted words from a psalm to prove that he would not have been hurt in any way. But had he done so, our Lord would only have proved that he had been over-reaching the privileges given to him, that he was simply too proud. The Son of Man did not succumb. His answer was short but full of strength: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matthew 4:7).

Is human cloning against any of God’s commandments? There is no clear prohibition in the Bible banning this procedure. But reproductive cloning could harm the fundamental structure of our society, which is the family. We read: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24, KJV). God wants successive generations of children to be conceived and brought up in a consciously embraced relationship. Cloning excludes a man as a necessary part in bringing forth life and reduces the woman’s role to an “incubator” for a growing life, a life that need not be related to her. When we look at the fall of the institution of marriage, the growing number of divided families which results in the constant moral degradation of successive generations, one might prefer to not imagine the consequences of being able to create children without either a father or a mother.

Therapeutic Cloning

In addition to reproductive cloning, there is another type called therapeutic cloning. This is a process by which a person’s DNA is used to grow an embryonic clone. However, instead of inserting this embryo into a surrogate mother, its cells are used to grow stem cells. Stem cells are totipotent which means any kind of tissue or organ can be grown using them. It is presumed that this procedure could help those who suffer from disorders such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.

The ethical problem is what to think about the embryonic stem cells that emerge from this process. There is no fertilization in therapeutic cloning and it does not result in the birth of a baby; the whole procedure of creating embryos takes place in a laboratory environment. However, what emerges out of this nuclear transfer is an embryo, which, if put in favorable conditions—a uterus—would produce a fetus and, after the passage of time, that fetus could be born as a baby. Although there is no literal fertilization, it is replaced by nuclear transfer. As we have already seen, not every life begins with a separate fertilization; identical twins are the result of single fertilization.

The Bible says that life begins long before we actually see a baby: “The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named me” (Isaiah 49:1; see also Job 31:15; Psalm 139:13-16; Jeremiah 1:5; Galatians 1:15). This does not allow us to consider any of the techniques that manipulate embryos as being in accordance with God’s will. This is the biggest argument against human cloning.

It is surely a great objective to strive to find a cure that would heal any sicknesses that trouble mankind. But this must not be done when the price is the suffering, or even the death, of other individuals, particularly those not able to protect themselves. Fortunately there does appear to be a way to gain the benefits of therapeutic cloning without the controversies associated with embryonic cells. Scientists have discovered there are cells scattered all over the body that are capable of developing into many different cell types; they are a kind of “repair kit” for the body. These researchers now must find a way to identify these adult stem cells from among all the other cells in one’s body and then stimulate them to differentiate in some desirable way. It is these adult stem cells that are responsible for the success of bone marrow transplants used to treat leukemia. There is also experimental use of such cells to generate healthy heart muscle cells for those with chronic heart disease. The use of umbilical cord blood is a similar alternative.

But we know that whatever mankind succeeds in doing, it can bring only temporary relief to the troubled human race. The permanent cure can only be found in God Almighty and his kingdom. That is why we long for the day when “the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).