LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 397

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS 397

What Child Is This?

Marriage, Family and Human Cloning
Introduction

In February 1997 the world was introduced to Dolly, a sheep
whose genetic instructions came entirely from one other animal
rather than from the DNA! combination of a male and a female
sheep. Intense public discussion concerning the merits of cloning
immediately ensued and initiated a debate that continues today. The
possibility that humans might be cloned has especially caught the
public’s attention.

Proposals to bring new human persons into the world through
reproductive cloning raise many far-reaching ethical and spiritual
questions, including questions about marriage, family and procre-
ation. In this report the Commission on Theology and Church Re-
lations responds to a request of the Synod that we reflect on the
science and ethics of reproductive cloning in the light of our Chris-
tian faith.’

G.K. Chesterton observed in 1933 that

private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature
theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and
widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and
this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was
known as the quarrel of Science and Religion.’
As Christians we patiently seek knowledge both about genetic sci-
ence and about our Christian faith. In the words of Chesterton, we
want no clumsy collisions issuing from impatient ignorance. We
must exercise patience both to discover the genuine promises and
to recognize the real threats that arise iri modern science’s study of
genetics and cloning.

Contemporary genetic science is making discoveries at a breath-
taking pace and is pursuing insights that are revolutionizing scien-
tific understanding of the biological processes of life. We Chris-
tians will find much to celebrate in genetic science’s development
of human ability to understand and work with the beautiful mys-
teries of God’s creation, but we will also find much that troubles us.
We must be ready to witness against the sin that infects all human
endeavor, including scientific pursuits, but we must also beware
lest we create conflict where God’s Word exposes no conflict.

The aim of this report is to make a contribution to the ability of
Christians to discern when to celebrate emerging gifts and when to
witness against looming evils. Many in our culture are tempted to
turn away prematurely from thoughtful reflection on difficult ques-
tions in science and ethics. Some fal] into despair in the face of
what appear to be intractable disagreements. Others take disagree-
ment to be a sign that the issues must not be so important after all.
Still others cut short the debate and seek to impose premature an-
swers through political and other means. Trust in the Holy Spirit’s
guidance through the Scriptures, however, enables us to resist the
temptation to turn away from thoughtful reflection. In these pages
we seek to promote careful thought and dialog by identifying, fo-
cusing on and addressing questions raised for Christian faith by re-
productive cloning.

The complexities of this study require that Christians approach
the controversies surrounding reproductive cloning from several
different directions. In the pages that follow we subject the pro-
posal to clone human beings to close analysis specifically in light
of what the Scriptures teach concerning martiage, family and pro-
creation,’ and in light of God’s redemptive purposes.

Reproductive cloning makes use of genetic science in ways that
also provoke significant ethical and moral questions concerning re-
search and technology that manipulate cells that give rise to human
life. The Commission is subjecting such questions to biblically dis-
ciplined scrutiny and will address these and other issues in subse-
quent studies.*

The discussion below first provides a description of how repro-
ductive cloning might bring about a new human individual and
compares this technology to other ways that new persons come into
the world. Insights from Scripture are then brought to bear on the
questions raised by this new technology. We find that simple but
enduring insights concerning marriage and family provide a firm
basis for the conclusion of this study: emphatic rejection of the pro-
posal that human persons be cloned.

Reproductive Cloning of Humans:
“What Child Is This?”
Questions Raised by Cloning

God’s Word in Genesis 2 locates the conception and birth of a
child in the sexually intimate relationship of a man and woman and
intends husband, wife and child to live together in a family. In
Matthew 19 and Mark 10 Jesus uses Genesis 2 to point to God’s
intentions for the integrity of marriage and family. Similarly, St.
Paul employs Genesis 2 in his instructions in Ephesians 5. Until
the present time, human reproductive biology also tied sexual inti-
macy and the procreation of a child tightly together.

Very early in the history of humankind, however, a variety of
settings emerged in which children were conceived and born. The
book of Genesis tells of children born in and out of marriage, con-
ceived not only by marital intercourse but also by surrogacy, in-
cest, and prostitution. Sexual intimacy is such a profound human
relationship that human beings have explored countless alternative
ways of experiencing this dimension of human life—and not al-
ways in keeping with the Creator’s intent.

Modern genetic science and the technology of cloning raise for
us new questions about the settings in which, and the technologies
by which, children are conceived and born. If we take conception
and birth within a marriage relationship to be the reference point,
what shall we think about the significance of the parents’ Christian
faith or lack of it? What shall we think about children—wanted or
unwanted—born outside of marriage?

If the intimate union of sexual intercourse is our reference point
for how a child is conceived, what shall we think about conception
through the variety of technologies related to in vitro fertilization?
What does it mean for a child if he or she is conceived by artificial
insemination, either with the husband’s sperm or with donor
sperm? Does gestation in another woman’s womb alter the human-
ity of a child? And what shall we make of cloning, a technique that
relates the child to one and only one other individual as the source
of the child’s genetic instructions? The Commission has addressed
some of these questions in its previous reports on Human Sexuality
(1981) and Procreative Choices (1996). This report draws on this
previous work as we reflect on related but also new and more com-
plicated questions.

Genetics, Reproduction and Cloning

Physically, the development and growth of the human body is
directed by our genes, some 40,000 to 60,000 sets of physical in-
structions encoded in the DNA in our cells. Except for cells that
are involved in our reproductive systems, every other cell in our
body contains the entire set of genes, a complete double set of in-
structions for our physical being. But cells in our bodies differ from
each other because only certain of the genes in a cell are actively
directing the production, for example, of new skin cells or new
muscle cells.

Our cells’ genetic instructions come in a double set of paired
genes. In the usual case our mother has contributed one complete
set of genes and our father the other. Thus, we are physically sim-
ilar to our parents and yet different because each parent has con-
tributed only half of her or his own double set of instructions to the
new set that is our own. This is because sperm and eggs include
only one half of the double set of genes found in the other cells of

2004 Convention Workbook