LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2007, Page 396

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396 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—-COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

3. In 1998 Res. 3-15B the Synod requested that the CTCR prepare
“a study document to help the church, on the basis of the Word of God,
make informed ethical judgments concerning cloning and attendant
issues” (1998 Convention Proceedings, 120; cf. also 1977 Res. 3-26
and Bylaw 3.9.6.2.1.c in the 2004 Handbook of the Synod). The Com-
mission’s initial response to this assignment was its 2002 report What
Child Is This? Marriage, Family and Human Cloning, which focuses
on the issue of reproductive cloning: “Reproductive cloning,” notes
the CTCR, “makes use of genetic science in ways that also provoke
significant ethical and moral questions concerning research and tech-
nology that manipulate cells that give rise to human life. The Com-
mission is subjecting such questions to biblically disciplined scrutiny
and will address these and other issues:in subsequent studies” (6). The
present report, therefore, is offered in response to 1998 Res. 3-15B’s
request for scriptural and ethical guidance concerning “cloning and
attendant issues.” Some of the “attendant issues” specifically noted in
the CTCR’s 2002 report are: “1) How are we to respond to questions
surrounding therapeutic (as opposed to reproductive) cloning, includ-
ing questions raised by stem cell research? 2) Who will have access
to the blessings of genetic knowledge and who will be oppressed by
its burdens? 3) Can we expect that society will strive to maximize
blessings and minimize banes? 4) How should Christians seek to in-
fluence the pursuit and development of genetic science and cloning?
5) What roles can Christian congregations play in helping Christian
people seek God’s will in these matters?” (6, fn. 5).

4. The Commission will be defending the position that pre-im-
plantation embryos in laboratories are to be accorded protection on the
same basis as live-born humans. Many who defend this position use
the language of “human personhood” to make the case. The CTCR’s
1984 report Abortion in Perspective explained why the case might best
be made without relying too heavily on the language of personhood:
“We refer to the child in the womb as a human being but refrain from
referring to that child as a person though we have no objection to the
use of personal language in that context. We do this simply for the
sake of clarity and to avoid unnecessary and futile disputes. In the con-
temporary meaning used by some, a person is a being aware of itself
as a self-conscious self, capable of relating to other selves and envi-
sioning for itself a future. On the basis of such an understanding, some
would deny that the life of the unborn child is personal life. The more
traditional sense given by Christian theologians to the term “person”
would predicate it of any member of the human species, any individ-
ual sharing our common nature—whether or not that nature is at any
moment developed to its fruition in the life of that individual. Human
nature has a capacity to know, love, desire, and relate to others. We
share in that human nature even though we do not exercise all the func-
tions of which it is capable. Thus, the contemporary understanding
adopted by some will designate as a person only one presently exer-
cising certain characteristic human capacities; it understands personal
life in functional terms. The more traditional understanding of Chris-
tian theologians regards personhood as an endowment which comes
with our nature, even if at some stages of life we are unable to exer-
cise characteristic human capacities. Obviously, some important
philosophical disputes—chiefly, the debate between nominalists and
realists—are involved here. We bypass these arguments and simply
refer to the unborn child as a human being. Whatever we may say of
personal qualities, human beings do not come into existence part by
part as do the artifacts we make. Human beings come into existence
and then gradually unfold what they already are. It is human beings
who are made in God’s image and valued by God—and whose
inherent dignity ought also to be valued by us” (28, fn. 17).

5. For the full text of this report and additional background
materials, see http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/cloningreport/
index.html.

6. See What Child Is This? for a biblical perspective that opposes
reproductive cloning.

7. Robert George, “Embryo Ethics: Justice and Nascent Human
Life,” Bradley Lecture, Boston College Institute for the Study of Pol-
itics and Religion (February 20, 2004), unpublished typescript, 1.

8. This report can be found online at http://www.bioethics.gov/
reports/reproduction and responsibility/index.html.

2007 Convention Workbook

9. Ibid., 245.

10. Ibid., 232.

11. Oliver O'Donovan, Begotten or Made? (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1984), 65.

12. Ronald M. Green, “Stem Cell Research: A Target Article
Collection, Part I1I—Determining Moral Status,” American Jour-
nal of Bioethics 2:1 (Winter, 2002), 23.

13. See the glossary of terms and abbreviations included at the
end of this report for this and other technical terms and acronyms
used in this document.

14 See Nature 431: 7011 (October 21, 2004), 927, 931 for a dis-
cussion of the difficulties involved in determining the precise number
of genes in the human genome. A summary report concerning recent
estimates can be found at http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?
id=dn6561 and a popular report at http:/Avww.usatoday.com/tech/
science/genetics/2004- 10-20-fewer-genes-needed_x.htm.

15. For an assessment of this method of procreation, see Chris-
tians and Procreative Choices, 21-22.

16. For an assessment of this method of procreation, see Chris-
tians and Procreative Choices, 7-20.

17. See news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_135000/135747.
stm.

18. See the CTCR’s 2002 report What Child Is This? (see also foot-
notes | and 3 above).

19. Some people raise the question of whether the cloned entity is
a human embryo. Because the cloned entity could develop into a fully
functioning human being, we consider that the ethical questions con-
cerning embryos apply also to entities produced by cloning for bio-
medical research.

20. Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology 29 (December 1986), 863.

21. See, e.g., AJ. Wilcox (et al.), “Incidence of early loss of preg-
nancy,” New England Journal of Medicine 319: 4 (1988), 189-194;
E.R. Norwitz (et al.), “Implantation and the survival of early preg-
nancy,” New England Journal of Medicine 345: 19 (2001),
1400-1408. For additional information and references, see on line at
http://www. bioethics.gov/reports/stemcell/ appendix_a.html#_edn4;
also http://www.begce.crbr.ulaval.ca/themes/themesS.htm.

22. Lori B. Andrews, “Embryonic Confusion,” Washington Post
(May 2, 1999), B.01, B.04.

23. Jeffrey P. Kahn, ‘Adoption’ of frozen embryos a loaded term,”
http://www-cgi.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/09/17/ethics.matters/.

24. John Van Regenmorter, “Frozen Out,” Christianity Today 48:7
(July 2004), 32.

25. See “Stem Cells: Scientific Progress and Future Research
Directions” (June 2001) at http:// stemcells.nih.gov/info/scireport and
“Stem Cell Basics” (August 2005) at http://stemcells. nih.gov/info/
basics.

26. “Stem Cell Basics,” IV.C.

27. Ibid., 1.A.

28. “Stems Cells,” Chapter 1: The Stem Cell.

29. “Stem Cell Basics,” V.

30. See footnote 19 concerning use of the term “embryo” ap-
plied to a cloned human life.

31. “Stem Cell Basics,” VI.

32. Ibid.

33. Further information concerning these terms and descriptions
can be derived from a variety of sources readily available on the In-
ternet. .

34. See What Child Is This?, 6 (fn. 5).

35. “Are We Killing the Weak to Heal the Sick?: Federally
Funded Embryonic Stem Cell Research,” Health Matrix: Journal
of Law—Medicine 12:2 (Summer 2002), 507.

36. “Three Views of the Preimplantation Embryo,” National
Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 2: (Spring 2002), 91.

37. Roger A. Willer, “Threads from the Conversation,” in Hu-
man Cloning: Papers from a Church Consultation, ed. Roger A.
Willer (Chicago: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 2001), 86.

38. See, e.g., the essays contained in Adoption of an Opinion on
Ethical Aspects of Human Stem Cell Research and Use prepared by
The European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies