Catholic priest weighs morality of therapeutic cloning and
embryonic stem cell research
Click here to see pictures from the event
By Brandon A. Evans
One of the problems of using embryonic stem cells to cure diseases—besides their uncontrollable growth—is that they will be rejected by a patient’s body just like foreign matter would be.
One of the solutions to this problem has come about through what is termed “therapeutic cloning,” a process by which a person’s clone, or twin, is created in order to be killed for its stem cells—which would be a direct match to the donor.
The ethical questions that surround cloning and embryonic stem cell research were the subject of a presentation by Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk on Jan. 12 at Marian College in Indianapolis.
Father Pacholczyk is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., a neuroscientist and a national Catholic speaker. The event was co-sponsored by the Indiana Catholic Conference and Marian’s newly formed Center for Ethics in Business and the Professions.
Biologically, there is no truth to the common claim that there are two different types of cloning, Father Pacholczyk said.
Oftentimes, people draw very sharp lines between therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning—the latter being when a cloned embryo is implanted in a womb and allowed to grow into infancy, childhood and eventually adulthood.
Morally, he said, the Church’s opposition to reproductive cloning is rooted firmly in its opposition to in vitro fertilization, in which the conception of a child is removed from the act of love making within a marriage—and in which children become viewed as commodities.
Father Pacholczyk gave a brief description of how cloning is achieved: a cell from a man’s body containing his DNA is taken and forced into the egg cell of a woman (after the woman’s DNA has been removed from that cell).
The egg then divides within itself, just as it would behave if a sperm had entered it, and in a short time becomes an early human embryo. Up to that point, the egg needs only to be in a laboratory.
After that, the embryo is implanted into a woman’s uterus, where it is nourished and grows into a fetus, and eventually is born.
The human being would be an exact twin of the original donor—only much younger.
In the case of therapeutic cloning, the embryo—a unique human being with its own DNA and limitless potential—is not implanted. Instead, it is killed and its stem cells are taken to be used in medically assisting the original donor.
“But hopefully you see the incredible moral price of what is being suggested here,” Father Pacholczyk said. “You must create your own twin brother or sister for the intentional and premeditated purpose of their demise. This is the worst kind of medicine conceivable.”
He said that some people convince themselves that a clone in a womb is different than a clone in a test tube—but any attempts to reason this out show its falsity.
What proponents of this idea argue is that “if you change the location of the embryo,” then you change its very nature.
This and other arguments are all ways of trying to justify the experimentation and killing of human embryos.
Humans, he said, have the lamentable tendency to create a sub-class that can be exploited—and this is probably linked to Original Sin.
“It’s been done in the past with black people and Jewish people,” Father Pacholczyk said, “where you cordon them off—a certain portion of humans [that] are different enough from us to be able to be treated with a different metric.”
That is, he said, exactly what has been happening with embryonic human beings recently.
A human being, he said, begins at the moment of conception, no matter how different or strange or small it may be—its DNA doesn’t lie, and that DNA is human.
With such moral questions—among other difficulties—Father Pacholczyk made use of the evening to strongly advocate for more work with adult stem cells, which each of our bodies contain and which have brought relief or cures for about 100 different diseases to date. †