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 Ban
All Human Cloning!
America Must Take the Lead
Published
in The Washington Times, April 23, 2002.
As President Bush pointed out in his
April 10 endorsement of S. 1899 sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback
(R-Kans.) and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.), the issue of
human cloning presents America, and particularly its government,
with a choice of paths.
America is challenged.
In the President's words, we must
decide either to "pursue medical research with a clear
sense of moral purpose," or "travel without an ethical
compass into a world we could live to regret."
It is not without cause that the Holy
See "supports a world-wide and comprehensive ban on human
cloning, no matter what techniques are used and what aims
are pursued."1 All human
cloning is morally wrong. It can never be purely "therapeutic."
Cloning - even when euphemistically labeled "therapeutic"
or "research" cloning - is always reproductive since
it always generates a developing human being.
Some proponents of human cloning hint
menacingly that unless America legalizes it, we will be "out
of step" with the rest of the world and that we will
be "left behind." However, it would be shameful,
pusillanimous and an abdication of leadership to turn our
back on what we know is morally right to spare ourselves the
sacrifices inherent to paddling upstream. If the river is
rushing heedlessly toward a moral waterfall, we should want
to be left behind. Furthermore, rather than follow trends
we should set them, and we should set them correctly.
We are no longer talking about authentic
medical progress where nature
is observed, understood and perfected. Backed by a biotech
industry that has already patented and redesigned some animal
species, this is a new frontier that could seek to change
the very nature and form of human life itself.
From the hallowed high-tech halls of
our research institutions, a disturbing new worldview is emerging.
There are some who believe this biogenetic revolution will
free us from the physical limitations of the human body. We
will be the architects of a new creation independent of universal
truths or outside forces. We are to be the masters of our
biological destiny as we program our own evolution. Rejecting
God, Who created us in His image, we will be free to create
our own image.
Indeed, some authors describe this
"brave new world" as "posthuman." "In
our view, human cloning constitutes a momentous route to the
posthuman," write Professors Steven Best and Douglas
Kellner, "a leap into a new stage of history, with significant
and potentially disturbing consequences."2
This posthuman world is anything but
disturbing to the futurist thinker and founder of Extropy
Institute, Dr. Max More: "No more gods, no more faith,
no more timid holding back. Let us blast out of our old forms,
our ignorance, our weakness, and our mortality. The future
belongs to posthumanity."3
Cloning, therefore, is a first and
tragic step towards this posthuman world. Our elected representatives
would do well to keep this in mind when they vote on this
bipartisan bill.
The Senate must pronounce itself on
this grave issue while America grapples with a war that started
last September 11, but which will develop, and, more importantly,
will end at a time and in a manner that no one can foresee.
The stakes, however, are clear: America's survival, and that
of Western Christian civilization.
If there ever was a time in our history
when America stood in urgent need of divine help it is now.
The Senate's decision to ban all forms
of human cloning would be an important step toward obtaining
this help from Providence.
This is so because a government speaks
for the nation. It represents the nation not only in the eyes
of the world and history, but also in the eyes of God. A government's
decision binds the country, for better or worse, and has consequences
for all of us. God rewards and punishes nations in this life,
for the good or evil they do. His infinite justice requires
this, for nations as such do not pass into eternity.
The Old Testament abounds with examples
of how God chastised or rewarded the infidelity and fidelity
of nations. For instance, regarding the Chosen People, we
read in the Book of Judith: "But when they deviated from
the way He prescribed for them, they were ground down steadily,
more and more, by frequent wars, and finally taken as captives
into foreign lands. The temple of their God was razed to the
ground, and their cities were occupied by their enemies. But
now that they have returned to their God, they have come back
from the Dispersion wherein they were scattered, and have
repossessed Jerusalem, where their sanctuary is, and have
settled again in the mountain region which was unoccupied."4
Regarding this, defeatists may argue
that banning human cloning now is "too little, too late."
That is false reasoning. It is never too late to do what is
morally right. America was viciously attacked on September
11 because of the good principles it represents. Our answer
should not be to throw in the towel, but to fortify and expand
those good principles all the more. In doing so, we may even
receive special graces to correct our ways and make up for
our shortcomings.
It is imperative that the Senate ban
all human cloning now, and thus help secure God's blessings
on America.
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