Would clones have souls?
So the recent news that scientists were able to clone primates has me thinking. Would clones have souls?
Christians believe that human life is valuable because it has an eternal soul that is designed to be in a right relationship with God. It is because humans have souls that we are different and, thus, killing of humans is immoral. However, animals don't have souls so killing them for meat, hides, etc. is morally acceptable.
So, if scientists created a clone, would that clone have a soul? If it had a soul, would there be anything wrong with creating it? If it didn't have a soul, would there be anything wrong with using it as a human-tissue repository?
We are not sure when God imparts a soul into a human embryo. Some argue fertilization, others implantation. Before ultrasounds, people believed the soul was given to the baby at the "quickening". We aren't even sure how to test for a soul. Self-awareness is too broad. Some animals recognize themselves. Deeds is too narrow. I've never heard anyone make an argument that sociopaths truly lack souls, even though they act nearly inhuman.
Further muddying the waters, test tube babies are created and then implanted in a mother's womb, so most Christians have come to accept that creating life outside of the natural process is acceptable. Certainly, cloning fall under that title.
So let's walk through my thinking...
1) A clone is produced and has a soul. This would appear to be analogous to making a test tube baby. Nothing morally wrong here. However, use of this clone as a repository for organs and not treating them like a real person would be immoral. (i.e. it would be immoral to force my clone to give up a kidney if I needed one)
2) A clone is produced and has no soul. This would analogous to having a pet. It doesn't appear to be immoral. And using the clone as a repository for perfectly matching organs would be acceptable. (i.e. it would be morally acceptable to kill my clone for his lungs, if mine needed replacing)
3) Other options?
It would appear that regardless of whether clones have souls or not, cloning isn't morally wrong.
Holes in my thinking and argument? Please note them in the margins.
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The Island
Michael Bay's outlandish film "The Island" explored this concept a couple years ago. The first half really delved into the issue.........the second half was a Michael Bay explosion-fest full of rediculousness.
Do clones have souls? Probably not. We can clone ourselves producing vast amounts of meat to trade with cannibals overseas in exchange for cheap labor.
Yay!
Where cloning is morally wrong
One place that I see a hole in your thinking, Expat, is where you suggest that cloning is analogous to making a test tube baby. With in vitro fertilization, the sperm and egg are still natural products of a man and a woman. The genetic makeup of the sperm and egg, and therefore the zygote, embryo, fetus, and child, are products of natural cellular processes. The resulting child is thus in God's hands, in a manner of speaking. With cloning, no such randomness exists. We are choosing the very DNA of the child, thus completely taking God's hand out of creating that life. That's where the immorality lies - not in creating life via unnatural means, but by dictating what that person will be on a genetic level.
My two cents
As to the question as to whether clones would or would not have souls, I believe our own soul/conscience tells us that they would. I don't think many of us who claim to be believers in Christ truly believe down deep that they wouldn't. Which of us would want their blood on our hands because someone told us they don't really have souls? My main concern with cloning lies with motive. What is the intention of cloning a person?
Dictating what a person will be on a genetic level, in and of itself, doesn't really concern me. Aren't twins supposed to be genetically identical? And yet they are distinctly two individuals with different experiences, likes and dislikes.
Also, as to whether we humans can take the creation of others completely out of God's hands, I believe the answer is no. If you believe that God is truly sovereign and a "hands on" kind of God, then there is nothing too far out of his grasp. God has been bearing with our mistakes forever, and yet he continues to work and even make those things work out for his purposes.
Cloning of organs for organ replacement, etc. is muddy water and I don't pretend to know the answer for that.
Although I don't get the
Although I don't get the whole god thing, I do appreciate that a soul, or conscience, is probably what we are talking about here. Twins are natural clones, they are identical, and this does not mean that these people are without souls, or conscience.
A person is a person, no matter how they got here, and even though we have banned human cloning, the truth is that eventually we will have human clones and will have to deal with them as human beings.
If God's hand, is interperted by randomness, than evolution is more of what you are defining, not a supernatural deity that defines life by a certain concotion of male and female genetic material.
I sincerly hope, that when human clones appear, and they will, that we treat them with the dignity and respect that any human being would expect and be afforded. No, I don't believe in human cloning. The human psyche is far to fragile to thrust into such an awful concept. Children need a mother and father, or some kind of surrogate. It impacts our emotional and psychological well-being, and I think that the research out there supports this claim.
However, it's gonna happen, and are we as individuals going to be prepared to handle it? Probably not. Women are selling their eggs as we speak to fertility clinics, for around 20,000 dollars, and there is nothing in place to deal with this new phenomenon.
How will these women feel in 10 years when they stop to think of where their babies are? Will they have any legal rights? Do their children have an legal rights?
So, without any further adieu, I will reinterate my point. Technology is moving too fast for the average American to understand, decipher, or ethically approach the issues. So clones? There coming, and this is an important issue that needs to be addressed now.
So what makes us human is recombinated DNA?
AB,
I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I really don't have any idea on how I feel about this. I'm just thinking out loud. Let me just shoot back a few things...
First, it appears that you are making the argument that life is effectively a recombination of DNA. Is that what you were shooting for? If that is case, what makes humans different than other animals? Each generation has a new combination of DNA that makes them unique.
Second, you said, "very DNA of the child" and I wonder if "child" is the appropriate term. Child is the term we'd use for an immature human. Therefore, to say "child" presupposes humanness within the clone.
Third, with invitro fertilization, parents can choose the DNA the child gets to some extent. Certainly, the parents can choose the sex of the child by ensuring no X or Y chromosome-carrying sperm are even in the petri dish. Would a boy, whose parents selected his sex, be less human than a boy who became such through the natural cellular process?
Good questions
Those are good questions, Expat. Frankly, I don't have solid answers for them. It's more than just recombined DNA that makes us humans, but taking that part out of the equation does seem to be removing God's hand from the picture, doesn't it? So too would choosing our child's DNA sequence, a possibility that may not be all that far off.
As for when the soul is imparted to a human, I don't think that's a question that can be answered by science...or at all, for that matter. It's interesting to discuss, but I can't forsee a clear answer coming about anytime soon. I hope that cloning a human proves to be far more difficult that some scientists assume. I suppose we'll see soon enough.
As for sex selection, I'm not comfortable with it, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that the boy in question would be less human.
These are questions that we deal with in my Biology classes when we discuss bioethics and the emerging genetic technologies. I love those lessons, but I still don't have good answers.
AB: at to the question of
AB: at to the question of our soul, I don't believe science even acknowledges it's existence. So science is utterly lacking in this area.
I do believe that the question of cloning is worthy of discussion. I am disgusted that too many conservatives and particularly Christians don't want to discuss it but only want to blindly condemn it. I don't think that I have ever heard a compelling argument against cloning. I am very open to the idea of banning human cloning, but I'd like to hear a complete argument.
hello AB, I really do
hello AB, I really do appreciate your frustration. It seems that we are so quick to "Ban" everything without having an intelligent discussion on the particulars of the science, and that America just doesn't seem to have a good understanding of say, the difference between therapuetic, and reproductive cloning. Big difference, but really what are they?
The truth is, people don't really know, generally, anything about cloning, at least not enough to make important decisions. But I blame that on the science community, it seems that they are not transferring information to us in effective manner.
And the media, they just want to sensationalize the limited public awareness of cloning, just to keep us scared and uninformed. Maybe not? Probably, I think so...No I'm sure.
The problem is we are not being informed about the important aspects of cloning that do not result in the death of an embryo. This is lack of information is making us look like cave men throughing rocks at the eclipse of the moon. We're still debating stem cells.
Stem cells are old hat, they're too volatile, have a tendency to become cancerous, and are really limited to grow.
Now, somatic cell transfer is really vogue. You use your own adult cells to grow a kidney, heart, liver, whatever you need. And not to be casual about this decision, I'm simply stating that so few people are aware of this emerging science, although in its infancy, that it may go unsupported.
Yes, science is a double edge sword, it can cut away disease, and challenge human dignity, but we need information in order to make these ethically based decisions. The car is a great invention that has saved many lives, and also kills around 58,000 people a year.
But we have laws in place, drivers license, no drinking, age limits, etc. Science is no different, but we need the information to make these decisions.
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