Tissue engineering and cloning are a threat to humans from this author’s worldview.
Tracy Hale
Tissue engineering and cloning are a threat to humans from this author’s worldview. However, that is a knee-jerk reaction and belief that should nevertheless be examined. The challenge is reconciling God’s sovereignty and Lordship with man’s intellect and abilities (which this author believes originated from God). Where does God allow free will and man’s efforts to determine life outcomes and where does He step in to keep the boundaries He has set? For example, when the Babylonians built the Tower of Babel to make a name for themselves and “be like God,” He interrupted the effort by changing their languages, and they had to stop building (Cite bible.) This example comes to mind often as the issues of life are contemplated. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (New International Version, 1995). He is mysterious and is the only One capable of making things truly beautiful, setting the days humans live and die, and making eternal life possible for anybody.
The textbook shed light on science’s advances and the potential benefits to quality of life. It notes that tissue engineering and stem cell research offer the promise of replacing or renewing failing organs and cells (Lawrence and Weber, 2020). This can help heal failed body parts, replace crucial veins to such organs as the heart, and replace tissue that has been destroyed in accidents. However, the issue of stem cell research is strongly unethical when it relates to taking newly forming human beings to use the cells to fix something on an existing human. Since all humans die, the fix is temporary at best, and a new life deserves a chance to grow and thrive. In the early 1990s, President George Bush limited stem cell research to the lines already formed (NIH Stem Cell Task Force, 2002), as he recognized the implications of this very controversial issue. As well, this author discovered that the umbilical cord blood contains rich stem cells, and thus donated her umbilical cord blood after delivery of her children. In this way, the stem cells may help treat other human conditions or be used for research without any harm to existing human life.
Cloning seems to be a more unified issue in its condemnation. Psalms 139:13 clearly states God’s role in creating life when it says, “For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (New International Version, 1995). Two professors wrote essays on their opinions about cloning, one Professor Kass universally condemning it as an endeavor fueled by “runaway narcissistic individualism abetted by moral laxity” (Franklin, 1991, p. 103). He states the kinship foundation of society is the union of male and female to create a child which embodies the parental lineages. Professor Wilson emphasizes instead that the mother-child bond is the kinship foundation of society, and thus cloning does not disrupt this (Franklin, 1991).
Tissue engineering and cloning are threats to humans. Job 14:5 states, “A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and set limits he cannot exceed” (New International Version, 1995). God is the author of life and no matter what man does to alter it, He still draws the boundaries. Any improvements for humans gained from tissue engineering are temporary. There are also too many complexities and unknowns about effectiveness, long term success, and side effects. Cloning oversteps the boundary of creation of life and will also produce many complications and consequences.
References
Franklin, S. (1999). The Ethics of Human Cloning. Society, 36(5), 103-104.
https://go.openathens.net/redirector/liberty.edu?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/ethics-human-cloning/docview/206715129/se-2Links to an external site.
Lawrence, A., & Weber, J. (2020). Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy.
McGraw-Hill Education.
NIH Stem Cell Task Force examines barriers to embryonic stem cell research, and other stem
cell research-related news. (2002). Journal of Investigative Medicine, 50(6), 394. https://doi.org/10.2310/6650.2002.32413Links to an external site.
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