The Promise of Cloning
versus
the Curse of Christ

A corns are not oak trees, and toasting them is not the same thing as starting a forest fire. It is a pity that the Russian Orthodox Church's leaders do not understand that simple fact of life. Without a pope of their own, but with the pope in Rome in full agreement, they have pontificated that the death of the recently cloned six-celled human embryo is "tantamount to murder." With members of Congress chorusing "Amen," few have seen the irrationality of the charge.

To have a murder, you have to have a person. How can a tiny clump of cells be confused with a person? Even according to religious views, there would have to be a soul in that ball of cells for it to be a person. According to the unscientific views of the churches, souls enter a zygote only after a sperm fuses with an egg. No sperms are involved in cloning. Certainly, then, there was no soul in the test-tube that cultured that clone. Even by religious logic, there could be no murder in such a case.

So why are religious leaders and politicians so upset about cloning that they want to outlaw the procedure and halt the most promising medical research in history? Cloning shows very dramatically that the religious notion of souls and spirits is nothing more than theological eyewash. Cloning shows that the human species is no different from other forms of life in its molecular mechanics. It shows that we are systems of matter and energy — period. There is no ghost in the machine. Priests and preachers are dealers in souls, however. If there are no souls, they are out of business. Politicians depend upon priests and preachers to provide them with obedient, uncritical followers; they can't let the soul-mongers go out of business.

There are dire consequences if Congress outlaws human cloning for therapeutic purposes or ratifies a House bill specifying a $1 million fine and ten years in prison as the penalty for human cloning. Therapeutically, cloning presents us with the dazzling prospect of practical immortality. If we could use stem cells from our own embryonic clones to replace worn-out organs of our bodies, we could almost live forever. Unlike ordinary organ transplants, these stem cells would be identical anti-genically to ourselves, so they would not be rejected by our immune systems. We could even use stem cells to replenish the declining numbers of neurons in aging brains. This would not, be it noted, require the cloned embryo to develop into an "unborn baby," as the Right-to-Single-Celled-Lifers so inaptly call a fetus. A blastocyst - a hollow ball of cells — with less than a thousand cells probably would be an adequate source of stem cells. In fact, by the time the embryo has developed recognizable, differentiated organs and tissues it is probably too late to get true stem cells — cells that can literally develop into any part of the body from nerves to nails.

Only religious superstition can make otherwise normal people think that destruction of a single-celled zygote or early embryo is the equivalent of murder - or that it has any ethical significance whatsoever. An embryo resulting from cloning is no more and no less a potential person than is any ordinary nucleated cell of the human body. Every nerve cell, skin cell, liver cell, and hair follicle contains in its nucleus the complete instructions for manufacturing the person in which it is found. Every one of these cells is a potential person. Are we committing murder every time we brush our teeth and swallow cells sloughed off our gums?

Nuclei from such cells, when transferred into unfertilized egg cells (oocytes) which have lost their own nuclei, are the source of the information required to control cell division and form embryos. Unidentified factors in the oocyte cytoplasm act upon the chromosomes of the transplanted nucleus to dedifferentiate them and rejuvenate them. In a very real sense, otherwise mortal cells with finite life expectancies become immortalized and transformed into stem cells - which not only can replicate themselves indefinitely, but can redifferentiate into all the types of cells found in the body, including eggs and sperms. Nowhere in this process is there a role for "the hand of God" - only the hands of lab technicians are needed. We must turn to chemistry, not theology, if we would understand the human body or find an answer to Shakespeare's question, "What is a man?"

Christian opposition to science and learning brought on the Dark Ages, and Catholic opposition to dissection and medical research held back medicine for many centuries. Without Christianity, we would have cured cancer centuries ago. Without papal opposition to the physical sciences and free inquiry, Columbus would have landed on the moon, not a Caribbean island, as Madalyn O'Hair observed many years ago. Christian antiscience now curses us once again.

We must urge Congress not to be stampeded blindly into outlawing scientific research. A benefit to humankind of almost unimaginable proportions awaits us in those cloning laboratories. We must hope our elected representatives will spurn the threats of the preachers and act in the best interests of humanity. In the long line of generations extending into the dateless times of prehistory, no society has ever had a chance like this one!

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by American Atheists.