CLONING IS a new battlefront emerging in the western world's loathsome undeclared war against human life, not surprisingly aimed at the most vulnerable and innocent members of society. I hesitate to call cloning activities science or their practitioners scientists. The Greek word thaumatourgia is, I believe, a more appropriate reference for human cloning activities, in other words, medicalized alchemy. Whereas human cloning remains in the realm of science fiction, the violations against human life by members of the biomedical profession are many and tragically real.
SACRAMENTAL HUMAN LIFE
IF THE tissues of a human person could be manipulated to produce a viable clone, would the clone be human? Would the clone have a soul? How can one apply faith and reason to such a controversial topic? To respond to these questions, I turn to the vocabulary of theology and philosophy, first the concepts of matter and form, and second the concepts of licitness and lawfulness. These terms are very useful in understanding the richness and mystery of sanctifying grace. If we were to consider the sacredness, that is to say, the sacramentality of human life, we can better understand how cloning deviates from Gods' law--natural and revealed--and the norms of human procreation and development.
THINGS AT HAND
LET US apply our Christian vocabulary to the nature of the human being. Matter refers to "things at hand", in this case the substance and existence of human life. Cloning procedures will not be able to change the reality of human life. Whether one is conceived naturally or cloned, he would receive uniquely human life, and in this sense his anthropological and spiritual integrity would be assured. All sentient beings who possess human life are ipso facto persons. A cloned person, if such an event were possible, would have a soul. The exclusive condition required for receiving a soul would be fulfilled: conception will have taken place whether in one's mother's womb or a laboratory.
ACTIONS INVOLVED
FROM A theological and philosophical standpoint, the integrity of matter also refers to the integrity of actions correspondent to the "things at hand". Here again cloning would forever be a flagrant offense against matter--the substance and existence of human life--because its activities are intrinsically unnatural. All activities of artificial manipulation of human life apart from natural procreation in the act of sexual intercourse between a man and woman are unlawful according to divine revelation:
(JESUS) ANSWERED, "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." [Mt 19:4-6]
LIVED HUMAN PERSONHOOD
BACK TO Christian vocabulary: form refers to the norms established by God's natural and revealed law governing human life and personhood. With respect to the natural law, manipulative biomedical actions against the integrity of human life are sins against the unitive and procreative charisms of marriage between male and female persons. Cloning experimentation is a violation against the natural law that governs human personhood and authentic human relationships.
THESE NORMS of nature include such things as natural conception, proper nourishment, protection, enrichment and opportunities for growth and maturity. We must never forget that all human beings are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, among them being accorded the dignity and worth accorded all human beings, the right to die naturally and--this cannot be overstated--the right to be lovingly conceived by one's own mother and father, birthed by one's own mother and the receive the best available maternal pre-natal and post-natal care.
NO POWER OVER DIVINE
ALSO, RECALL that the proper form of human personhood is the soul. One's soul is never a copy or duplicate of any other. It images God wholly and entirely, not mankind in general nor any particular person. Cloning and artificial insemination have no power over the human soul. The soul of every person is unique, irreducible, and reflective of the splendor of the eternal, unchanging, absolute and irreducible God. Hence, cloning has no power to degrade the divine image of God in the personhood of man. Cloning has no power over the human need for redemption, whether the eternal soul or the physical body whose hope is the resurrection of the dead.
OUTSIDE THE BOUNDARIES OF LICITNESS
LET US turn to the matter of licitness. Tragically scientists will justify human cloning experiments using the same experimentation models and protocols as they would for animal tissues and animal subjects. The fact that cloning experimentation, storage and disposal of tissue, fertilized eggs and aborted fetuses are a predation of human life is inconsequential to profiteering and celebrity-driven medical entrepreneurs. Contrary to the willed stupidity of cloning experimenters, their actions most certainly are consequential. In no way does their refusal to confront the moral and ethical implications of their work sweep these critical issues off the table. Cloning experiments always are illicit, that is to say, all the experimenters activities are wholly outside the boundaries of legitimate spiritual and secular authority.
NO MEDICAL or scientific organization, nor any national nor world governing body possesses the power to grant or negate the rights of any person irrespective of his conception or human condition. Human government can make only one legitimate response to the needs of human beings: to guarantee the respect and protection of all human life from the unborn to the grace of natural death. Most especially, all legitimate human authority is obliged to protect and defend at all times the lives of the weak and innocent members of society.
CLONING OPPOSES FAITH AND REASON
IF THERE is the slightest doubt regarding the certainty of matter and form with respect to human life, any incursion is therefore to be considered predation. Respect for human life cannot be subordinated to probability or opinion, and governments of nations bear the responsibility of curbing irresponsible experimentation which evidences neither justice for the individual or the good of the many. Only a power higher than mankind has dominion over life, and our Divine Creator has never relinquished it to mankind. Gods divine law is revealed in the circumstance of his intervention into the affairs of earliest man. In response to man's original sin and consequent chronic temptation to appropriate human life, God imposed an irrevocable sanction in human prehistory that forever binds mankind:
THEN THE Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever"--therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. [Gen 3:22-24]
NATURAL HUMAN reproduction cannot be changed even inadvertently without setting in motion grave consequences affecting human society. Any substantial change to the normative character of either form or matter constitutes an egregious sin against all human life with potentially interminable tragic consequences.
UNLAWFUL ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE
FINALLY, WE address the issue of lawfulness. The virtue of justice requires that we give to everyone--especially the most helpless and innocent--what they are due in the eyes of God. We have seen how cloning experimenters act utterly outside the boundaries of legitimate temporal and spiritual authority. Moreover, cloning activities are unlawful always and everywhere no matter who conducts these experiments because they are inherently unjust and violate the natural and spiritual orders established by God in his divinely revealed law:
FOR THOU didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful are thy works! Thou knowest me right well; my frame was not hidden from thee, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. [Psa 130:13-16]
WITH RESPECT to human experimentation, the integrity of matter and form is absolutely essential to safeguard the character and coherence of all human lives. The substance and existence of human life must be morally united as one and the same with licitness and lawfulness, that is to say, the fullness of human personhood and the God-given human rights guaranteeing it. If in the physical world, there exists innumerable examples of matter and form together constituting an integral body, how much more is this true when applied to incomparable treasure of human life and dignity?
FOR YOUR LIFEBLOOD
WILL THE cloning experimenters realize that ends never justify the means? Have they forgotten the human right of every person to be born of a mother and father and be nurtured in an environment worthy of his dignity as a human being? What reasonable and proximate good justifies cloning experimenters' manipulation of human life?:
FOR YOUR lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning; of every beast I will require it and of man; of every man's brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image. [Gen 9:5-6]
DO THE experimenters forget that universally accepted medical ethics require that all human subjects give their free will consent? That human subjects are to be familiarized beforehand with every conceivable aspect of an experiment involving them? Do the experimenters not care that a cloned person would be an unwilling and unwitting participant in an experiment for which he has never given his explicit consent? Who would uphold the right of a cloned person to terminate his participation in the medical experiment that conceived him? Could such a compromised and tragic person choose to walk away from his experimental environment free of force and pressure by the biomedical establishment that owns him?
IF SLIGHTEST DOUBT EXISTS
ORDINARY MEN and women of good will everywhere know that cloning compels so substantial a change to the norms governing human life that it cannot be reconciled to natural faith and reason let alone supernatural faith and reason conferred by the Holy Spirit. Respect for human life cannot be subordinated to probability or opinion, and governments of nations bear the responsibility of curbing irresponsible experimentation which evidences neither justice for the individual or the good of the many. If the slightest doubt exists regarding the certainty of matter and form with respect to human life, any biomedical incursion must be considered predation and be immediately terminated. Never do evil that good may come of it. [cf. Rom 3:8]
GOD NOT OUTDONE IN GENEROSITY
FORTUNATELY FOR humanity, the Lord is never trumped by any transgression of mortal man whether stiff-necked stupidity or complex and overweening selfishness. Neither is God to be outdone in charity and mercy towards all persons who stand in need, especially the utterly helpless and innocent victims of medical gold-diggers. Recall the words of St. Paul: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". [Rom 3:23] No matter how far one may stand apart from God--this is the appalling outcome that looms with regards to all willing and unwitting participants of cloning activities---salvation is assured to all who confess with their lips "Jesus is Lord!" and believe in their hearts that God raised him from the dead. [cf. Rom 10:9]
