St. Philip Church
Respect Life Committee
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Human Cloning
Assault on Life and Human Dignity
Human cloning is a form of asexual reproduction. It is done by taking
genetic material from a person's body cell and injecting it into an
egg, then stimulating the egg to begin embryonic development. Genetically,
the cloned embryo is virtually identical to the person whose cell was
used. Some people would use cloning to produce infants as "copies"
of living or deceased people, while others would use it to mass-produce
human embryos to be destroyed as raw material for experimentation. But
in both cases the cloning procedure is the same.
Human cloning is wrong. It dehumanizes human procreation and treats
human beings as laboratory products, as nothing more than carriers of
traits that others find useful. Cloning human embryos for research (so-called
"therapeutic cloning") demeans life by creating new human
lives in order to destroy them. Cloning embryos for live birth (so call
"reproductive cloning") violates human dignity, robbing the
child of a real mother and father and subjecting him or her to other
people's pre-conceived blueprints for the "perfect" or wanted
child. In addition, attempts at live birth would involve the "trial
and error" deaths of countless developing humans - Dolly, the cloned
sheep, was born after 276 failed attempts - and any cloned humans who
survive will likely suffer from devastating health problems.
Banning all human cloning will not impede medical progress. Cloning
is increasingly recognized as a wasteful, unreliable and unnecessary
path to medical research. For example, some scientists want to produce
embryonic clones of patients with disabling diseases, so they can destroy
these embryos to obtain "stem cells" genetically matched to
each patient. (Stem cells are fast-growing unspecialized cells that
can develop into a variety of cell types in the body.) Yet any effort
to treat a major disease by this route would require creating and destroying
literally millions of human embryos, and exploiting millions of women
as sources of eggs so the embryos could be produced. In fact, enormously
beneficial stem cell research can be done today in completely ethical
ways, using stem cells from adult tissue, umbilical cords and other
sources that involve no harm to human life. New cures can be pursued
without creating human lives in the laboratory solely to destroy them.
(See http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993638, Adult
stem cells tackle multiple sclerosis)
Act Now to Ban Human Cloning!
The effective and morally acceptable way to prevent human cloning is
to ban its use to make new humans in the first place. Legislation has
been introduced in Congress to do just this. The U.S. House of Representatives
is expected to pass this legislation, but the U.S. Senate is divided
on this issue and is more of a challenge.
On January 23, 2003, Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Mary Landrieu
(D-LA) introduced the Human Cloning Prohibition Act (S.245) with 21
other sponsors. This measure will ban human cloning for any purpose.
The bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions. Your two U.S. senators need to hear from you with
this message: "Please vote for S. 245. Stop all human cloning.."
Write a letter, send an e-mail, phone, stop by and visit their local
offices. Write a letter to the editor of a local paper. Act today!
Rhode Island
R.I. Gen. Laws § 23-16.4-2 to 23-16.4-4.
Bans use of somatic cell nuclear transfer "for the purpose of initiating
or attempting to initiate a human pregnancy, "as well as the creation
of, "genetically identical human beings" by "dividing
a blastocyst, zygote, or embryo." The law seems to ban cloning
by the use of "any live human fetus, whether before or after expulsion
from its mother's womb, for scientific, laboratory research, or other
kind of experimentation." R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-54-1(a). An
analysis commissioned by the National Bioethics Advisory Commission
interprets this law to "Ban research on in vitro embryos altogether,"
apparently including cloned embryos. NBAC, Ethical Issues in Human Stem
Cell Research, Vol. II, pages A-4, A-10.
U.S. Statement on Cloning to the United Nations, 2/2002
Human cloning - for any purpose - is an enormously troubling development
in biotechnology. It is unethical in itself and dangerous as a precedent…It
is also a giant step toward a society in which life is created for convenience,
human beings are grown for spare body parts, and children are engineered
to fit eugenic specification. We cannot allow human life to be devalued
this way.
Information from the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment
(e.g.)
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| The Voice of our Foremothers - |
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Pro-Life Feminism
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Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton were the driving force behind the women's rights movement.
Their partnership was formed in 1851, after their separate fights
for women's rights, temperance, and anti-slavery programs led only
to frustration. They became the most powerful team in the history
of women. Together they founded a newspaper called The Revolution,
to voice their opinions on women's rights. The Revolution
and most other feminist publications of the last century, refused
to join in the common practice of printing advertisements for thinly-disguised
patent medicine abortifacients.
Note that these feminists did not oppose abortion because it
was unsafe. Their argument was that abortion takes a human life, and
ultimately hinders justice for women.
Susan B. Anthony
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" She called abortion
"child-murder." (The Revolution - 4(1):4 July 8, 1869)
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"We want prevention,
not merely punishment. We must reach the root of the evil...It is
practiced by those whose innermost souls revolt from the dreadful
dead." (The Revolution - 4(1):4 July 8, 1869)
- "All the articles on this subject
that I have read have been from men. They denounce women as alone guilty,
and never include man in any plans for the remedy." (The Revolution-4(5):4
February 5, 1868)
-
" She classed
it with the killing of newborns as "infanticide." (The
Revolution - 1(5):1 February 5, 1868)
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"When we consider
that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that
we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we
see fit."
(Letter to Julia Ward Howe, October 16, 1871, recorded in Howe's
diary at Harvard University Library)
- "There must be a remedy even for
such a crying evil as this. But where shall it be found, at least where
begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of women?"
(_The Revolution_ 1(10):146-7 March 12, 1868
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"[This]
subject lies deeper down in woman's wrongs than any other...I
hesitate not to assert that most of [the responsibility
for] this crime lies at the door of the male sex."
(The Revolution - 1(14):215-6 April 6, 1868)
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"When
a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that
there is something wrong in society-so when a woman destroys
the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either
by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged."
The Revolution - 3(9):138-9 September 2, 1869)
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" The
first woman to attempt to run for President was a strong
opponent of abortion. Woodhull's and Claffin's Weekly, proclaimed,
"The rights of children as individuals begin while
yet they remain in the fetus." (2(6):4 December 24,
1870)
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"Every
woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear
an unwished-for-child, not think of murdering one before
its birth." (Wheeling, West Virginia Evening Standard,
November 17, 1875)
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"Child
murderers practice their profession without let or hindrance,
and open infant butcheries unquestioned...Is there no remedy
for all this ante-natal child murder?...Perhaps there will
come a time when...an unmarried mother will not be despised
because of her motherhood...and when the right of the unborn
to be born will not be denied or interfered with."
(Woodhull's and Claffin's Weekly, November 19, 1870)
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"The
custom of procuring abortions has reached such appalling
proportions in America as to be beyond belief...So great
is the misery of the working classes that seventeen abortions
are committed in every one hundred pregnancies." (Mother
Earth, 1911)
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" The
author of the original Equal Rights Amendment (1923) opposed
the later trend inking it with abortion. A colleague recalls
her expressing the opinion that "abortion is the ultimate
exploitation of women."
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"As early
as 1792, Mary Wollenstonecraft wrote "A Vindication
of the Rights of Women," which Susan B. Anthony admired
enough to serialize in the _Revolution_. After decrying,
in scathing 18th century terms, the sexual exploitation
of women, she says, "Women becoming, consequently,
weaker...than they ought to be...have not sufficient strength
to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing
to lasciviousness the parental affection...either destroy
the embryo in the womb, or cast it off when born. Nature
in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her
laws seldom violate them with impunity."
We Entrust our Mission to Our Lady of Guadalupe,
Protectress of the Unborn
O Mary, bright dawn of the new world,
Mother of the living, to you do we entrust the cause of life:
Look down, O Mother, upon the vast numbers
of babies to be born, of the poor whose lives are made difficult,
of men and women who are victims of brutal violence,
of the elderly and the sick killed by indifference or out
of misguided mercy.
Grant that all who believe in your Son may proclaim the Gospel
of life
with honesty and love to the people of our time.
Obtain for them the grace to accept that Gospel
as a gift ever new, the joy of celebrating it with gratitude
throughout their lives and the courage to bear witness to
it
resolutely, in order to build, together with all people of
good will,
the civilization of truth and love, to the praise and glory
of God,
the Creator and lover of life.
Pope John Paul ll
Encyclical Letter "The Gospel of Life"
Given in Rome, on March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation
of the Lord, in the year 1995.
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