Cloning: Ethical Questions

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The sheer pace of scientific progress in the twentieth century had created a situation when people often find themselves in the position of taking immediate advantage of purely theoretical scientific concepts. The discovery of DNA and its role in predetermining the physical and mental subtleties of one’s existence, allowed us to realize that it is now only a matter of time before we are going to be able to talk about genetic engineering, as the method of improving biological quality of the human population. Even today, the practice of genetic cloning of living organisms, which became possible due to recent revolutionary breakthroughs in the field of biology, yields absolutely real benefits – it allows people to extend their lifespan. In his article “The Benefits of Human Cloning” Simon Smith says: “Human cloning technology could be used to reverse heart attacks, it can “fix” defective genes, it will help people dealing with infertility and it might even lead scientists to the discovery of a cure for cancer” (Smith 2007). However, as it has always been the case, within the historical context of religion vs. science, those who think that it is solemnly up to them to set the moral standards in Western societies, try their best to prevent scientific progress from remaining on its natural course, and even to reverse it back, if possible, simply because their narrow-mindedness prompts self-proclaimed “experts on morality” to think of empirical scientific research as “evil” in its very essence.

After having “benefited” humanity by organizing Crusades, burning heretics at the stake, and prompting people to indulge in “witch-hunt”, Bible thumpers now want us to think of scientists, who insist on the legalization of human cloning, as “evil-doers”.

However, we need to understand that, within the context of discussing the effects of human cloning, religious moralists’ argumentation holds absolutely no value, simply because it is always religion that resorts to science, in order to substantiate the validity of its theological notions (“scientific creationism”) and not vice versa. Science, and especially medicinal science, might not have answers to all questions (yet), but the answers it has are undisputable, whereas religion does not provide people with even a single answer of any practical value, in regards to the existential challenges, these people have to deal with on daily basis. Yet, “holy fathers” often prove themselves ignorant enough to suggest that doubting the conceptual validity of religious dogmas represents a major “sin”. In their book “Philosophy Made Simple”, Richard H. Popkin and Avrum Stroll talk about the concept of scientific inquiry, which lays at the foundation of Western rationalistic civilization, as being often morally disturbing by definition, because it is namely their willingness to question just about anything that allows scientists to be referred to as scientists, in the first place: “Philosopher claims that fundamentally the questions to be considered are too important to be answered in any quick and lazy fashion. It would be far better to have no answers than unexamined answers or, worse, answers that might be wrong” (Popkin, Stroll XIII). However, it is not only on a purely theoretical level that the nonsensical nature of moralists’ denial of human cloning becomes apparent. Michael Moore’s article “End Embryo Research?”, provides us with a better understanding of the level of Bible thumpers’ argumentation, which is being utilized by them to slow down the pace of scientific progress. In it, the author quotes Cardinal Thomas Winning, Archbishop of Glasgow, who while referring to stem cell research and the practice of human cloning in general, said the following: “We are being duped into believing that by destroying human embryos and creating people’s biological replicas, we can conquer diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes and childhood leukemia and repair hearts, livers, kidneys and so on” (Moore p. 946). If anything – it is Christian religion the dupes people into believing that by praying Jewish tribal God Jehovah and his illegitimate “son of man” they can be cured of deadly diseases. The wealthy members of Christian clergy, like Winning, understand this fact very well, which is why they prefer to undergo medicinal treatment in Swiss private clinics, rather than relying on prayers when they become ill – unlike ordinary “lambs of the herd”, the self-appointed representatives of God on Earth, never suffer from the shortage of money.

Religious moralists never get tired of whining about the prospects of an individual’s life being dropped in value if human cloning becomes a fully legitimized practice. The editorial “To Clone or Not to Clone”, which can be found in Christian Century Magazine from June 2002, claims: “The prospect of people replicating themselves or their dead relatives seems intuitively repugnant – a clear case of treating people as commodities” (Christian Century, 2002 p.5). However, as history shows, even before it became practically possible to clone people, the value of human life had never been held in particularly high regard. The laws of nature clearly point out at metaphysical wrongness of the notion of life’s sanctity. As the character of Wolf Larsen, in Jack London’s novel “Sea Wolf” says: “Why, if there is anything in supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the world. There is only so much water, so much earth, so much air; but the life that is demanding to be born is limitless…Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things, it is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives” (London Ch. 6). And yet, it is the practice of human cloning, which can help people to improve their health, and maybe even to set them on the path of achieving real immortality, namely because this practice is not concerned with the issues of “morality”.

Those who oppose the practice of human cloning often suggest that cloned individuals will be deprived of the actual soul, because it is only when children are being conceived by conventional means (which Christians still think of as sinful!), that allows them to be born with a soul inside of their bodies. However, Bible thumpers never bother to actually come up with a clear and comprehensible definition as to what the notion of the soul stands for. Their existential ignorance causes them to believe that even human fetuses have souls, which is why biologists should be forbidden from utilizing them, during the course of scientific research. Moreover, moralists suggest that human embryos are entitled to what they refer to as “free will”. At the same time, the proponents of “free will”, do not expound much on the subject of whether the people affected by genetically predetermined mental or physical illnesses possess free will or not, because it is just too obvious that they do not. However, it is namely the practice of human cloning, which can completely eliminate the possibility of genetic disorders being passed from one generation to another. Is it good bad or? For Bible thumpers, it is bad, because if there are going to be no cripples and mental retards left; Christian doctrine would lose the last remains of its credibility. As religious doctrine that feeds on pain and suffering, Christians actually confuse such suffering with free will, which is why their arguments, in this respect, cannot be taken seriously. Every time, Christian (especially Catholic) moralists open their mouths to criticize human cloning as immoral, they should be pointed at the actual effects of their religious concept of morality, being utilized to increase the amount of pain and suffering in countries of the Third World. In his book “The Death of the West”, Patrick J. Buchanan rightly suggests: “Great folly of Christian doctrine was probably never as glaringly revealed as by the insane policies the Christian churches implemented in the Third World. The churches oppose contraception, sterilization, and abortion among their members. This results in exploding population growth which is further abetted by the medical care and food provided by the same churches” (Buchanan p.125).

When U.S. Congress had put a ban on human cloning in 2005, only very naïve people believed that it would last for longer than few years. Today, all signs point out the fact that the practice of human cloning will become fully legal in the U.S. even before the end of this year. This is because legislative acts, introduced to protect “morality” can only temporarily slow down the pace of scientific progress but they can never stop it altogether. Just like their contemporary spiritual heirs – Medieval inquisitors used to justify their anti-scientific stance by their dedication to the protection of “morality”. Yet, they ultimately failed, because, by opposing science, they were transgressing the laws of nature. Therefore, modern watchdogs of “morality” can do all they want, in order to prevent scientists from conducting research on the subject of human cloning – they can hold “pro-life” public rallies, they can place explosives under the cars of their opponents, they can pray God for progressive scientists to be struck with a lightning bolt; yet, they will ultimately prove themselves as being unable to reverse the course of scientific progress.

In his article “Human Biotechnology”, Jesse Reynolds suggests that it is only the matter of time, before human cloning is going to be fully legalized, because scientists will be able to convince everybody in the apparent benefits of this practice: “Today, a number of respected writers, academics, and researchers are explicitly advocating the development of technologies that would set us on our way towards a new eugenics. The road to human clones and designer babies is being built not by easily dismissed sects, but by some leading bioethicists and biotechnologists” (Reynolds 2003). It is not a secret that Christianity has entered the era of its twilight. Moreover, it would not be too daring to suggest that there are not going to be many people left in the world, believing in Christian nonsense, by year 2100. We face paradox – Christianity has long ago ceased to be a credible religious concept; yet, our code of social ethics is still being largely based on it. However, it appears that uneducated people simply do not have the right to impose their outdated moral concepts onto society. People are entitled to have their opinions, whatever ridiculous they might be, but when it comes to making decisions, which affect millions of people, religious fanatics need to be silenced. Christian “scientists” would be much better off talking about donkeys that can speak and about the Sun, made to stay motionlessly up in the sky by one of Jewish tribal leaders (as described in Bible), while trying to prove their intellectual sophistication, then providing people with their “valuable” opinion on issues they could not possibly understand.

The last Presidential elections in America had proven beyond any doubt that citizens became tired of right-wing Christian moralists telling them how to live their lives. They became tired of hypocritical politicians, who scream bloody murder, when being asked about their opinion towards possible legalization of human cloning in this country, while suggesting that the Americans soldiers should continue to needlessly die in Iraq.

As we have shown earlier, there is a good enough reason to fully legitimize the practice of human cloning, because having a ban on such practice violates the most fundamental principles of scientific progress. However, there are many purely pragmatic reasons as to why scientists should be put at liberty of conducting a research on the subject of such cloning. Even though Christian moralists and their neo-Liberal cronies suggest that people’s lives can only be improved by the mean of education, the recent revolutionary breakthroughs, in the field of genetics, point out at conceptual fallacy of such assumption. This is because, as it has been revealed by these discoveries, the particularities of one’s social upbringing are the least responsible, within a context of forming his or her individuality – the only truly effective way of improving people’s lives is improving a biological composition of these people. In his article “The Case for Eugenics in a Nutshell”, Marian Van Court establishes a close link between eugenics, genetic engineering, and human cloning, while exposing these concepts as utterly beneficial to a mankind: “Egalitarians take a circuitous route to solving social problems – they keep trying to change people by altering their environments. Despite witnessing their abysmal string of failures, our natural desire to alleviate suffering and improve the world persists. This desire finds new hope in eugenics based on science, not propaganda and wishful thinking. Eugenics takes the direct route. It holds the unique potential of actually creating a better world, of making profound, concrete, lasting improvements in “the human condition” by improving human beings themselves” (Van Court 2004). We need to dispose of narrow-minded vision of human cloning as simply the practice of creating people’s biological replicas – such cloning is nothing less of a pathway to better, brighter world. Countless “experts on morality”, strive not to mention the fact that, while cloning just about any living creature, biologists are in position to make replica much better then the original. Namely, such their ability lay at the core of stem cell research. In its turn, stem cell research has direct implications, within the context of human cloning. Our understanding of DNA mechanics puts us in position of demi-Gods, capable of exercising a full control over our own biological destinies, instead of relying on good graces of non-existent Christian (Muslim, Judaic) deity. Christian objections that the practice of human cloning represents “meddling in God’s affairs” and as such, it would eventually be “punished”, needs to be rejected as irrelevant. Even if we assume that God does exist, he can hardly be regarded as “universal lover of mankind”, simply because of the overwhelming evidence as to his own biological incompetence – people born with horrible physical deformities, doomed to the “life of living death”, as good Christians deny them their right to end their painful existence by resorting to euthanasia. There is absolutely nothing unnatural in human cloning, because this practice simply indicates the fact that people continue to remain at the leading edge of biological evolution – it is not simply that they become ever-more complex, as time goes by, thus reducing the amount of entropy in the universe, but that they now in possession of practical instruments of being in full control of this process.

It was at the end of 19^th century, when Friedrich Nietzsche had realized that homo sapiens was not the final product of evolution, but rather an intermediary link between the ape and the super-man. In his prophetic book “Thus Spake Zarathustra”, Nietzsche suggested that: “All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass man? What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame” (Nietzsche 3). Therefore, our present ability to clone human beings, while perfecting them biologically, simply indicates the fact that representatives of most scientifically advanced races stand on the brink of new evolutionary jump, which will render all our earlier moral concepts as grossly outdated. This is the reason why members of Christian clergy hate the concept of human cloning with such an utter passion. Once we take our destinies in our own hands, these people will be revealed as who they really are – social parasites, preoccupied with enriching themselves, without contributing to society’s welfare.

It is quite natural for people to remain skeptical of new scientific concepts. As Richard H. Popkin and Avrum Stroll suggest in the book, from which we have already quoted: “The thinkers who began the philosophical quest were those who found that when they scrutinized these accepted beliefs, they were seen to be inadequate” (Popkin, Avrum XIII). This is why many people consider it highly unethical to design human beings, although they can rarefy come up with a comprehensive answer why. This, however, does not mean that it will continue to be the case in the future. When first cars and motorbikes appeared on the streets of American towns, many overly religious people used to refer to them as “devil machines”. Today, we cannot imagine how it is possible to live without cars. The same is going to happen to the concepts of genetic engineering and human cloning. Professional moralists try their best to convince people in the sheer wickedness of these concepts, by pointing out to potential hazards, associated with replicating people. However, from our point of view, it appears that the only problem that might arise out of practice of human cloning becoming fully legitimate is that merely few rich money-bags would be able to take the practical advantage of it.

Ancient Romans knew that seemingly illogical behavior of particular groups of people might not be quite as illogical as it appears. In order to define the essence of just about any socio-political event, they would ask themselves a question “quo bono?”, which literally means “who benefits?”. If we apply the same principle to explain what prompts many people to oppose the concept of human cloning with such a passion – we would be able to realize that it is all about money, as always. There can be no doubt that rich and powerful are already having their biological replicas produced for them (as shown in movie The Sixth Day), just as there can be no doubt as to the fact that NASA is well aware of presence of some unimaginably ancient ruins on the Moon, and that the cure for cancer already exists. Yet, this kind of information is not being released to the public, because had it happened, the very foundations of our civilization would be shaken. World’s political, religious, and financial elites are not interested in it. It is namely people’s ignorance that allows representatives of these elites to buy whole islands for the purpose of recreation, to light cigars with thousand dollar bills and to have freshest lobsters and oysters directly flown to them, regardless of where they might be at particular moment. As we have mentioned earlier – the concept of human cloning is the practical path to immortality. But if people were set on this path, they would radically revise the very essence of their worldviews. This is the reason why “moralists” on the payroll of financial and religious elites apply such a big effort into trying to convince people that, while dealing with life’s challenges, they should resort to just about anything but science. Nevertheless, since scientific progress is an objective category, it is only the matter of comparatively short time, before the practice of human cloning would become universally recognized as being utterly beneficial to the well-being of mankind.

Bibliography

Buchanan, Patrick “The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization”. NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2001.

Popkin, Richard and Stroll, Avrum “Philosophy Made Simple “. NY: DoubleDay, 1993.

London, Jack “Sea Wolf”. 1999. About.Com: Classic Literature. (2009). Web.

Moore, Michael “End Embryo Research?”. The Christian Century. (117)26, (2000): 946-7.

Smith, Simon “The Benefits of Human Cloning”. 2001. Human Cloning.Org. (2009). Web.

Reynolds, Jessie. “Human Biotechnology”. 2003. Z Features Online. (2009). Web.

Nietzsche, Friedrich “Thus Spake Zarathustra”. 2001. Philosophy. (2009). Web.

To Clone or not to Clone (editorial). The Christian Century. (119 )12, (2002): 5.

Van Court, Marian “The Case for Eugenics in a Nutshell”. 2004. Eugenics. Net. (2009). Web.

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Cloning: Ethical Questions

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