Christian Perspectives On Cloning
(Self)
When Christians grapple with complex questions with profound ramifications, we consider not only the scientific and moral aspects implications of issues such as cloning, but also how these issues fit into the framework of our faith provided by Scriptures and the Gospel message revealed centuries ago, yet still guiding our beliefs today.
Human cloning is one of the thorniest issues that modern Christian scientists, scholars, clergy, and lay people must consider. Sometimes called nuclear transfer, the process occurs when the DNA nucleus is transferred from an adult cell to an egg from which the nucleus has been removed.
One common myth about cloning is that the process creates an exact duplicate of a person. Not so, says Gregory Pence, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and author of Who's Afraid of Human Cloning?, in his article "The Top Ten Myths about Human Cloning" at Reproductive Cloning.net:Cloning merely re-creates the genes of the ancestor, not what he has learned or experienced. Technically, it re-creates the genotype, not the phenotype. Conventional wisdom holds that about half of who we are comes from our genes, the other half, from the environment. The false belief that cloning recreates a person stems in part from the common, current false belief in simplistic, genetic reductionism, i.e., that a person really is just determined by his genes. No reputable geneticist or psychologist believes this.
Yet the replication of a person?s gene structure, even without the accompanying thoughts, memories, and beliefs that make individuals unique, is still enough to make even scientists committed to progressive medical research wary.
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