The Ethics: Therapeutic v. Reproductive Human Cloning

Jay Sekulow and Gene Kapp talk with Senior Policy Analyst for the ACLJ Bill Haynes about the difference between therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning. Here is that exclusive interview:

Jay Sekulow: Bill, one of the issues that has clearly become front and center is the issue of reproductive cloning vs. therapeutic cloning. The US Senate says that when it comes to reproductive cloning, they want to ban it; with regard to therapeutic cloning, they want no ban in place. You've been to these conferences to discuss the issue-What's the difference between therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning?

Bill Haynes: Well Jay, one of the real issues that was brought up at this conference by some of the leading bio-ethicists in the country was very interesting. They said that all cloning is reproductive cloning. Whether we're talking about what's called "reproductive" cloning, or what's called "therapeutic" cloning, in each case you still have reproduction taking place-the cloning of the individual. It's just a matter of whether the baby that is created ends up in a live birth, or is destroyed, as Senator Brownback talked about earlier on this program.

Sekulow: Yes, I absolutely agree that in either case you're creating life for the purpose of destroying it. What is the difference that Senator Feinstein keeps talking about between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning?

Haynes: Well, the difference is that with the therapeutic cloning they're trying to create this life for a brief period of time, in order to extract stem cells so they can develop cures for diseases. That's the whole motivation behind therapeutic cloning, and it's a noble motivation. We also want to see diseases cured; we want to see people helped through various processes-but this is not the way to do it, because it flies in the face of all biblical truth.

Gene Kapp: Bill, there are some serious ethical questions that enter into this whole discussion when you talk about the therapeutic aspect of the cloning issue, aren't there?

Haynes: Absolutely, Gene. If you go back to the book of Proverbs, in Proverbs 16:25 it says, "There is a way which seems right to man, but its end is the way of death." And certainly here this seems so good and so right, because we're helping people; but it's ending in the deaths of individuals-the creations that are being made in those laboratories.

Sekulow: Then you hear all the reports coming in saying that adult stem cells are actually more beneficial therapeutically, and you don't have the risk of the reproductive termination of life. Let's talk about what Gene mentioned-the moral implications here. I mean, the idea that we create human life to destroy it is reminiscent of the Nazi program of eugenics, where they were basically applying the concept of selective breeding to humans-killing the old and disabled to make "progress." That's one of the reasons why the German government has been so aggressive in outlawing this act of cloning now, because of the reminiscence of what happened back in the 1930's and 40's.

Haynes: That's exactly right. And again, we look at some of the literature that came out of Nazi Germany during those days, and it showed the very same reasoning that's being used today. The Nazis looked at the concentration camps, and they said, "These people are going to die anyway; they're going to be killed anyway. So why not learn something from that?" And they're saying with these cloned embryos: "They're going to be destroyed anyway, so let's learn something from it." But there's a myth that there's millions and millions being destroyed every day anyway. That is not true. That is being propagated by the media to some degree.

Kapp: I think it's also clear that people are all over the map on this issue. You read the articles, you see people that are torn over this whole therapeutic cloning issue and whether or not it's something we do need or something that crosses the line. From a Christian perspective, Bill, let's boil it down to its simplest terms.

Haynes: Boiling it down to its simplest terms, it's the whole life vs. death issue; it's whether we're going to be a culture of life, or a culture of death. And I think as the church, we need to be crying out against these things that are taking place in the laboratories. I remember reading several years ago an old Jewish proverb, or parable, that told about a man who stood outside the gates of Sodom and Gomorrah and screamed, "Stop the debauchery! Stop the abomination unto God!" And he continued to scream it until a young man came along and said, "Old man, stop your screaming; you're never going to change them." The old man replied, and said, "No, I'm never going to change them-I know that; but I keep screaming so that they don't change me." I think the problem is the church today is not speaking out against these issues that are so dangerous. We may not change the culture, it may have gone too far in some of these areas, but we need to be careful we don't let the culture change us, and buy into the culture of death.

Sekulow: You know, one of the things that Sam Brownback has said on this, Gene, and I think it's so appropriate, is to ask, "What is the definition of life? And are we in the culture now that we create life for the purposes of destroying it?" Where the other side has been aggressive in saying, "This is going to be the cure-all for illness," which is speculative science. And by the way, Dave Weldon, the congressman who introduced this in the House, knows more than anybody about the nature of science, because he himself is a medical doctor, and still is in practice while he's serving at the US House of Representatives. And I think what his statements have indicated clearly-and Senator Brownback's as well-is that we're looking at the question, "What is life?" But again, it's creating life for the purpose of destroying it, and that's the danger in this is that we've become so callous in our culture.

Haynes: That's exactly right. We must come to a point where we see life as being virtually important in every respect, and we must see that as a church we cry out for life again. The church has become sadly silent, Jay, in these last few years over the whole spectrum of life issues. We must scream out again.

Sekulow: And this is why the partial birth abortion issue is related directly to the issue of cloning, because they are all part of the same continuum. With partial birth abortion, now we've destroyed life when it's been actually delivered through the woman's womb, and through the birth canal itself. We destroy life there, we destroy life in the beginning with embryonic stem cell research, and you've got this continuum. We need to see an end to both; we need some action in the Senate on this. By the way, again, the Department of Justice filed a brief in defense of a ban on partial birth abortion. I'm sure that this Department of Justice would also do the same on the cloning issue.