My trip is drawing to a close. I am in Paris and in two days, I’m flying back to Australia. But this is a concept I’ve been considering since we were in Bournemouth.
For my sins (haha) I’ve been searching the internet for the religious viewpoint on human cloning. Without delving too far into the theological argument, here are two of the most poignant quotes from my search:
“Only God has the right to create a new human soul, and only God has the power to grant eternal life” (interpretation of Genesis 1:27 King James Bible). Source Activated Ministries
Pope John Paul was quoted in August 2000 as condemning human reproductive and therapeutic cloning is “not morally acceptable, even when their proposed goal is good in itself”. Source Religious Tolerance
The argument that scientists should not be “playing God” by cloning a human is based on the principle that cloning of any form is “wrong” and “not morally acceptable”. My view is that the argument is value based rather than having a logical reason as to why it is wrong to play God. It could be argued that there many socially acceptable forms of “playing God” in medical science for example a life support machine or drugs to cure fatal disease. I am starting to wonder if the messages about what cloning is and what it can do are not communicated well enough. I hope to come back to that idea in the next week or so, but next time I will be looking at the intrinsic value of life, human dignity and cloning.
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