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Christian leaders have responded quickly to Sunday's announcement that Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) has created human clones. The embryos died after a few hours.

The scientists said the experiment was not aimed at creating cloned human babies. Instead, the group's intention was to develop an embryo long enough to cultivate embryonic stem cells. In an article for the journal e-biomed (and appearing in the January issue of Scientific American), ACT makes a distinction between this type of cloning—called therapeutic cloning—and cloning that would produce a baby. Their method uses the genetic material from patients' own cells to treat illnesses, they say, while reproductive cloning should be banned due to "safety and ethical issues."

Few Christian leaders see such a distinction. President George Bush has called the experimentation "morally wrong." The Vatican responded with "unequivocal condemnation" saying that in such research, "the end doesn't justify the means."

Since Sunday, life ethics watchdog groups have condemned ACT's work by citing bottom line issues that embryos are humans and that any cloning is immoral. Most called for an immediate federal ban. In July, the House passed legislation that would ban any cloning—reproductive or therapeutic. But it stalled in the Senate after September 11.

After Sunday's announcement, Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) encouraged the Senate to push the legislation to the forefront. On Tuesday, senators delayed decision for several months.

"The human embryo is a human person created in God's image," Jennifer Lahl, executive director of the Center for Bioethics and Culture, told Christianity Today. "We strongly support Senator Brownback is his push for legislation and call for a total, outright, complete, full ban on all cloning."

Nigel M. de S. Cameron, dean of The Wilberforce Forum, says opposition to human cloning is not limited to pro-life advocates, conservatives, or Christians. In fact, a broad collection of voices has assembled to call for a comprehensive ban. This debate is not a rehash of the abortion issue, Cameron said. Advocates from both sides of that debate oppose the direction in which human cloning could take life ethics. He explained in a statement on The Wilberforce Forum Web site:

If the human embryo is a human person, as many of us believe, then plainly experimental use of the embryo is always abuse and must be stopped. If we take an intermediate view, and say we do not know; or if we take the view that there is a high degree of genetically unique potential in the embryo that stops short of personhood—still we will not create embryos for experimentation and death. It is very striking that even some of those who favor that kind of use of so-called spare clinical embryos draw a deep line in the sand here. This mechanical production of members of our own species is inherently de-humanizing.

Cameron and Lori Andrews, director of the Institute for Science, Law, and Technology, at the Illinois Institute of Technology, first published this argument in an August Chicago Tribuneopinion piece. They wrote that pro-life and pro-choice advocates have found "common ground in their commitment to the human future and the distrust of uncontrolled biotechnology, and revealed the extraordinary potential of their working together."

The piece centered on three renowned pro-choice advocates who testified before the House in June against human cloning. Judy Norsigian (editor of Our Bodies, Ourselves), social philosopher Francis Fukuyama, and New York College of Medicine's Stuart Newman said fears about cloning are unrelated to pro-choice convictions.

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November (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45