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Posted on 01/18/2008 10:33:54 AM PST by NYer
The Vatican on Friday condemned the cloning of human embryos, calling it the "worst type of exploitation of the human being."
"This ranks among the most morally illicit acts, ethically speaking," said Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican department that helps oversee the Church's position on bioethics issues,.
A U.S. company said on Thursday it used cloning technology to make five human embryos, with the eventual hope of making matched stem cells for patients.
If verified, the team at Stemagen Corp., would be the first to prove they have cloned human beings as a source of stem cells, the master cells of the body -- which scientists hope to harness to repair devastating injuries and cure diseases.
Sgreccia said the cloning research was unjustifiable. He also said it was unnecessary, given advances in similar research that bypasses the controversial use of embryos.
"There isn't even -- I won't say the justification, because it's never justified -- but not even the pretext of finding something (new)," he told Vatican radio.
There are several types of stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, made from days-old embryos, are considered the most powerful because they can give rise to all the cell types in the body.
Other teams have made stem cells they believe are similar to embryonic cells using a variety of techniques, including reprogramming ordinary skin cells into what are called induced pluripotent stem cells.
Sgreccia said, given the alternatives, he could not understand why scientists wanted to use human embryos -- which the Roman Catholic Church believes should be protected.
"You can't know any more if this is all a game ... done solely out of the desire to experiment on men and women," he said.
Stemagen Corp said it used a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT, which involves hollowing out an egg cell and injecting the nucleus of a cell from the donor to be copied -- in this case, the skin cells from two men.
It is the same technique used to make Dolly the sheep in 1996, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult.
I can understanding cloning if it were for replacement organs or something like that, but I really don’t understand the drive to clone humans, or animals for that matter. Does anyone have any insights I am missing?
The real reason for cloning is so all us guys can have our very own Kobe Tai.
Possible to place the mind of a horribly burned, deformed, ect person to the body that is healthy.
People watch too much sci fi.
If I cloned you, the person would not be a 100% replica of you.
You have different thoughts and feeling and your upbringing makes you who you are.
You could clone hitler, may look like him, but have a different soul.
We are still light years away from major breakthrough.
“The real reason for cloning is so all us guys can have our very own Kobe Tai.”
LOL...Well if relationships were like computer software, I don’t think wife 1.0 will allow Clone Beta 0.1.
1) There is nothing wrong with eating cloned meat. Anyone that thinks so is a complete moron.
2) Cloning people to use for organs would be just WRONG.
3) Cloning people simply to have a “child” wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. People need to get over it.
4) Pointing out that we’re “Playing God” is stupid. God gave us BRAINS and thinking ability, and NO ONE on this planet can say what God thinks about things. Simply put, no one is going to tell me that something I do is something “God wouldn’t like”. Sorry, no one can know what is in God’s mind.
If you are cloning organs, that’s one thing. If you’re cloning a person to TAKE their organs then I’m with the Pope on that one. It’s immoral. It’s wrong.
When installing newer software it usually replaces the old version.
If successful treatments can be developed using early-stage human beings, it's easier to sell the idea that abortion is not so bad.
The real aim of this research is to clone organs. If you could grow your own liver, you could get a transplant without having to drug your immune system into submission for the rest of your life.
The goal of this research is to clone but NOT have the cells differentiate (turn into skin, bones, etc). The intended end result is to have a big glob of stem cells for experiments in curing Parkinson’s, growing organs, etc.
Now I’m not pro-life and I’m all for experiments so I don’t really understand your position but as far as I can tell, what most scientists are trying to do here is not clone people. They’re obviously having problems stopping the cells from differentiating but the goal is to get past that.
There is one thing though, even if they are successful in the early part of this process this embryo and a regular one would be virtually the same. As far as I can understand the pro-life position, you all consider a bundle of undifferentiated tissue to be a ‘person’. Embryonic cells don’t start to differentiate until they reach a sufficient number of cells. That’s why you can take an embryo that’s only gone through a few cell divisions, split it, and end up with a normal pair of identical twins.
Would he really have a "soul" at all?
Can we make "souls?"
In the cloning process the basic relationships of the human person are perverted: filiation, consanguinity, kinship, parenthood. A woman can be the twin sister of her mother, lack a biological father and be the daughter of her grandfather. In vitro fertilization has already led to the confusion of parentage, but cloning will mean the radical rupture of these bonds.Human cloning must also be judged negative with regard to the dignity of the person cloned, who enters the world by virtue of being the "copy" (even if only a biological copy) of another being: this practice paves the way to the clone's radical suffering, for his psychic identity is jeopardized by the real or even by the merely virtual presence of his "other". Nor can we suppose that a conspiracy of silence will prevail, a conspiracy which, as Jonas already noted, would be impossible and equally immoral: since the "clone" was produced because he resembles someone who was "worthwhile" cloning, he will be the object of no less fateful expectations and attention, which will constitute a true and proper attack on his personal subjectivity.
PONTIFICIA ACADEMIA PRO VITA - REFLECTIONS ON CLONING
Ok, so what you’re saying here is if someone clones himself, then he makes a copy of himself, and thus this is not a “Father-son” relationship. There’s no mother involved, etc.
Actually, you’re wrong.
To “clone” at least at our current level of scientific understanding, an egg is still required. Sorry, there’s got to be a mommy and a daddy. Even if they aren’t married. (That happens ALL the time, doesn’t it?)
The egg is essentially stripped of any DNA from the mother-egg donor, and then DNA from the male would be inserted. (Or, could be from another female). The egg then would be implanted/fertilized in some manner.
So... well, I suppose one way or another someone would bitch about it from a religious standpoint.
Perhaps even from a moral standpoint.
However, I contend this is irrelevant. God gave us the brains to figure this science out, and human beings who try to tell other “What God would think” are absolutely being arrogant about it.
I don’t think you, me nor anyone else has the ability to see into God’s thinking.
Sorry.
God has given us the brains to do a lot of things, that does not make all of them "good". Just because we can do something does not mean that we should do it.
We need to spend a lot more time asking ourselves if we "should" do something rather than if we can do something.
glad they’re not mincing words, glad it’s getting out. even if the only reason yahoo/ap would carry it is to inflame people against the Church.
John Paul the Great,who may have benefited from it, condemned Embryonic stem cell research on moral grounds. and scientific grounds.
Those people who are screaming bloody murder about stem cell research are simply, in MY personal opinion stupid because they are basing it wholly on religious basis.
No they are not "stupid", They have different view point then yours and just as valid as yours. I disagree with you on both moral, religious grounds, and scientific.
There has not been a single advance in medicine from embryonic stem cell research, Not one. On the other hand I do support Stem cell research when the cells are taken from :
1)Adults
2)Placentas
3)Umbilical cords
4)Any other method that does not involve the killing of children.
Religious biases are perhaps right in a moral aspect, SOMETIMES, but not ALWAYS. There has to be an honest, scientific examination of the particular science and religion ought not to enter into the conversation because it simply isn't science.
Before scientists go running off they need to sit down and decide if something is ethical to do. Human cloning requires the harvesting and destruction of an ovum. Questions need to asked and answered before this goes much further.
1) Should women be allowed to sell there eggs?
2) Will this affect a woman's ability to have children in the future?
3) Who or what will carry the Baby to term, If it is a surrogate will they have rights?
By the same token, I see when science is trying to explain something religious, religion tends to freak out. FR here is no exception to this rule. I've seen MANY religious persons here who "freak out" whenever they see where science is trying to explain something that tends to be in the religious realm.
You are contradicting yourself. You think it is okay for Science to dabble in religion, but not the other way around.
So - my point is simple. From a purely scientific point of view, there is nothing wrong with working on the science of cloning for the benefit of human-kind. Religion needs to remain out of it, UNTIL some particular immoral act occurs.
Your point is not simple, and it is in error.
People of good moral character, whether they are religious agnostic or atheist, need to be involved long before an immoral even occurs.
History is ripe with examples of Science needing to be monitored. During and after WWII African American males were intentionally given STD's with out their consent or knowledge at the Tuskegee Institute to see how the disease progressed. In the 1960 male Orphans were subjected to doses of Radiation near Philadelphia to see the effects that it would have on there ability to have children, without their consent.
Someone else here awhile back was advocating stopping people from doing things "because it might go wrong". That's wrong. No one should be stopping me from doing ANYTHING simply because THEY don't like it. It's tough they don't like this thing I do (whatever it might be) if it isn't actually already illegal, then leave me the hell alone.
The two examples I cited above were not illegal but they sure were wrong do you honestly condone either of those two, and can you honestly say that either or both of them should not have been stopped.
Science deserves the same privilege and should perhaps be questioned, but not STOPPED before it can prove or disprove something. To do so takes us back to the time of Galileo and Copernicus. It was heresy for them to even SUGGEST that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The truth is known today, but then they burned people for such things. Galileo escaped being burned, but he didn't escape being arrested, held prisoner and threatened.
Copernicus was a Catholic Monk. He did not suffer any ill will or affect for teaching the Heliocentric theory. Galileo was allowed to continue all of his research unabated was he was stopped from doing was proclaiming it as Religious Truth. It was the Church itself that agreed with your position of keeping the religious aspect out of it.
Two points here try to resort to less Ad Hominum attacks and second do a little more study of history. Georges Santanna was correct Those that do not learn from history are DOOMED to repeat it.
BTTT!
All I can say is don’t buy one when they first hit the market. Wait a couple of years. They’ll work out the technical problems and the price will come down too. I’d also consider a good used model.
By the way, Verga... the Vatican is WRONG to condemn cloning. The Vatican and the Pope are INTERFERING in science that can HELP the human race, by using religious dogma and teachings - which we don’t KNOW are always correct. My ORIGINAL point, that God gave us brains to think, we’re intelligent and we can do the math (and come up with an answer) doesn’t mean that God doesn’t WANT us to do something. God also gave us free will, and it’s not up to you, the Pope or ANY OTHER HUMAN to stop others you think are wrong based on personal belief. (Personal belief is the problem here, not religion, and the two things cross each other way too often)
“Can we make “souls?”
That’s God’s job and power.
If the cloning does not harm human life, than why the objection?
Abortion, cloning, ebryonic stem cell research, euthanasia really comes down to this...whose lives are determined to be more valuable than others and how can society use those who are considered “less valuable” to society’s benefit? This disgusts me and reminds me of the 1930’s Germany.
See the link at post #13.
I can see the breakdown in ethics if cloning is used to place children with people lacking the traditional family unit. But I fail to see that this would always be the case.
I see it as a power that CAN be rightly used, but also used to the detriment of the individual and the family.
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