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What does the Church say
about human cloning?
Question: Is there an official Church teaching on human cloning?
Answer: The Instruction, Donum Vitae (2/22/87), of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explicitly addresses cloning. Donum Vitae, I, 6 addresses manipulating embryos and "techniques of human reproduction." The Instruction says, in part, " Also, attempts or hypotheses for obtaining a human being without any connection with sexuality through 'twin fission,' cloning or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union" (DV, I, 6).
Human cloning is a deep invasion of human parenthood. A "clone" technically has no human parents, not by accident but by design. This does disrespect both to the dignity of human procreation and to the dignity of conjugal union (marriage). Contrary to the right of every person to be conceived and born within marriage and from marriage (DV, I, 6), the clone is reduced to the level of a product made, rather than a person begotten.
Biblical anthropology respects the divine design of life-giving love: ". . . and the two become one flesh" (Gen. 2:24; Mark 10:8; Eph. 5:31). This personal, unitive, two-in-one-flesh dimension of life-giving marital love is rejected and replaced by technological replication. Thus, cloning contradicts the creative plan of God. As Pope John Paul II teaches in Evangelium Vitae (3/25/95): begetting is the continuation of creation (EV, n. 43). Manufacturing is proper to and productive of things, but not of persons.
To reduce human procreation to no more than plant or animal replication (without human parenthood) is to remove the humanum from human parents and the human child. The psychological consequences, proximate and remote, for both "clone" and "cloner" are simply unknown. With humans, it is not enough not to know we do harm; with humans, we must know that we cause no harm. The first canon of medical ethics remains: Primum non nocere! First, do no harm!
Twenty-five years ago, the late Professor Paul Ramsey of Princeton wrote a book, Fabricated Man (Yale; 1970), that detailed many objections to the manufacture of humans from the Christian point of view. His well-argued objections very much pertain here.
A question of Human Wisdom. Take a look at our external environment and the manmade damage to the environment, some foreseen, much unforeseen. Is anyone that sanguine about the state of our external environment, that he or she is now anxious to "engineer" our internal evolution?
The Scottish cloned sheep, Dolly, succeeded on try #300. The first 277 attempts did not even fuse. From #278 on they did fuse but variously misguided, mishapped, grew some and unwound until #300 took.
Does anyone think that some expert is going to hit a perfect human clone on the first and only clean try? What are we to do or say of the mishaps, the mistakes, the less-than-perfect tries and results? Are they merely discards? Have they any protections or protectors, or are they mere biological stuff like research on improved salad oil or improved motor oil?
In the process of xeroxing people (clones), who is in charge of Quality Control? Who has the qualifications to determine who shall or shall not enter our human community (for early eugenic elimination, cf. EV, nn. 14; 63).
At least in human procreation, there is a natural community (mother and father) to receive the new life. In human cloning, it is not truly the parent(s) who decide but the technicians who determine which "quality types" are fit for membership in the human community. Is this limited or licensed to the married? Is it limited to one sex or the other?
Cloning is not now and never will be a poor peoples campaign. As Prof. Wm. E. May has long pointed out, there is a profound ethical difference between "having a child" and "making a child." A child begotten can always be seen as a GIFT; a child made or manufactured can always be seen as a THING -a product for use; not respected for what he/she is, but valued for what it can do, for use.
Here the scientific canons of efficiency replace the ethics of life. As Ramsey pointed out long ago, the so-called technological imperative: "Whatever can be done, should be done" simply confuses the ability of doing with the quality of being. Ramsey himself had the Christian view: the good things that men do can be made complete only by the things they refuse to do. And cloning is one we should not do.
Are there still some "approved authors"?
Question: You sometimes cite Peschke and Grisez as if they were the "approved authors" of our day. Is that what you mean to do?
Answer: It was, but in one case I can no longer do that without qualification.
My first reason for quoting G. Grisez, Living a Christian Life, II (1993) and K. H. Peschke, Christian Ethics, II (1985) is both are comprehensive textbooks, both are in English, both are used in some seminaries and both are published with "imprimaturs."
To tell the truth, there is not that much published today that you could call systematic moral theology of a general or comprehensive nature. Many books are really collections of articles by the same author in one area or on a single subject. Thus, comprehensive indexed works in which you could look up a question on any virtue or commandment are now rare.
The 2nd edition of Peschke's, Christian Ethics, II (1985) was really a reprint of his first edition (1978). It is verbatim the same book except for references or citations from the Code of Canon Law. The first (1978) edition cites the 1917 Code, whereas the second (1985) edition cites the 1983 Code.
However, in 1993, Fr. Peschke published a third edition of his Volume II that is much revised and expanded: the 2nd edition was 627 pp.; the 3rd edition is 822pp. Unfortunately, this 3rd edition is not as reliable as the prior two.
Much, but not all, relevant Church teaching is presented along with classic sources; but this is now accompanied, at times overwhelmed, by theologians and theological opinions that do not support Catholic teaching but contradict it in practice.
Invariably, this "alternate" opinion is of the "proportionalist" school (J. Fuchs; B. Schuller; R. McCormick; F. Böckle; B. Häring; F. Scholz; L. Janssens; J. Grundel). Thus, some directly willed evil is normally wrong, BUT for a very grave (or proportionalist) reason it is admissible: e.g., direct sterilization (p. 277); direct suicide (301-302; 305); direct therapeutic abortion (308; 329); masturbation for health reasons (427); a menu of views and theories on homosexual acts (460-462); divorce-remarriage-eucharist (488-490).
Sometimes Peschke responds to aspects of these alternate dissenting views; sometimes not. In the latter cases, there they rest at the end of a treatment just as calmly as the authentic Catholic teaching that began the treatment. It would seem that it is left to the reader to decide which is the better view, which the more adequate teaching to follow or counsel.
By and large, it is the 5th and 6th commandments where this style is invoked, but even there selectively. When treating torture, rape, genocide or racism, even proportionalists are embarrassed to mention proportionalism.
Thus, the 1993 3rd edition of Peschke's Christian Ethics, II, is problematic in this regard, all the more so since it gives so much place to the proportionalist method so thoroughly repudiated by Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor, nn. 71-83 but especially VS, n. 75, also published in 1993.
Perhaps, some further edition will correct this distortion, but until then, Peschke's most recent edition cannot be recommended without careful qualification.
Please address questions to Msgr. Wm. B. Smith, St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, Yonkers, N.Y. 10704. n