Moral Outcry

Part IV - From clone to cadaver

Until Dolly the Sheep made world headlines in 1996, cloning was an issue we reserved for sci-fi stories. Then suddenly we were presented with the reality of the viability of cloning. And the abortion industry already knew it. Cloning makes for great movies about doppelgangers, but in the real world, cloning is planned abortion.

As 2004 opened, New Jersey passed a frightening law that essentially allowed human cloning of an embryo to be implanted in the womb as long as the baby was aborted. Some believe this restriction on growing a new life would actually result in fetal farming by cloning the baby and then killing it before birth and taking the fetal remains for research. Although the bill’s text bans the sale of humans, it allows for “reasonable” payment of service. Ethicist Robert P. George from Princeton University, was one of several on a presidential ethics council who addressed this concern to the governor of New Jersey who wrote:

Although the legislation purports to ban trafficking in fetal body parts for "valuable consideration," it expressly permits "reasonable payment" for "removal, processing, disposal, preservation, quality control, storage, transplantation, or implantation of embryonic or cadaveric fetal tissue." This is a virtual invitation to cloning entrepreneurs to conduct …what would amount to fetal farming for research, presumably including experimental treatments. There seems to be nothing in the legislation to prevent cloning entrepreneurs from paying women a "reasonable" fee to gestate embryos and submit to abortions for the production of human bodily tissues and organs… then charge a "reasonable" fee to their customers for "processing," "preserving," "storing," "transplanting," or "implanting" fetal cadavers and tissues. And what if a gestating woman has second thoughts and decides not to abort the developing fetus? Would a court be asked to enforce a contract for abortion? We hope and trust that no court would do that. But then we would have what the sponsors of the legislation say they oppose: the birth of human clones.  (Source)

William Saleton who wrote about this in a 5-part series for Saleton discusses then current legislation in 2005 says, “You need cells with your DNA. You need a clone.” The way this concept works is that the clone then becomes a cadaver.  

Citing the NJ cloning law, Ethicist George notes the dichotomy that the law explicitly states the harvesting of “cadaveric fetal tissue” is okay. A cadaver is, according to Random House, “a dead body, esp. a human body to be dissected; corpse.” Therefore, what the law is saying is that when a doctor aborts a baby, he or she is actually removing a fetus, not a person, but when the fetus is aborted, the cells are then considered cadaveric and can be legally harvested because the baby is dead.

We continue to see the law’s double standard of recognizing a fetus as life sometimes and as non-living tissue other times. This is a ripe field for fetus farming because its language creates enough of a legal loophole to allow the law to speak out of both sides of its twisted mouth.

The issue here is what the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) calls the slippery slope of cloning. This article notes the dichotomy that while “therapeutic” cloning is allowed while “reproductive” cloning is not, what this produces is more death instead of life because the clones are implanted and nurtured, only to be mandated to be aborted so they are not considered “reproductive.” Therefore, it’s, in essence, a therapeutic abortion. The USCCB notes that the researcher's justification for fetal cloning to produce the organs for scientific cures actually means that “cloned embryos were grown into cloned fetuses, then aborted for their cells.” Their conclusion:

Cloning supporters in the biotechnology industry are moving on to the next stage of their agenda – one that requires gestation in the womb to grow and then destroy fetal humans for their body parts. They believe use of human cloning for "therapeutic" purposes may require use of what everyone once called "reproductive" cloning.

On March 27, 2003, Richard M. Doerflinger, Deputy Director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, testified before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on the issue of cloning and said:

Human cloning is sometimes presented as a means for creating life, not destroying it. Yet it shows disrespect toward human life in the very act of generating it… Here human life does not arise from an act of love, but is manufactured to predetermined specifications. A developing human being is treated as an object, not as an individual with his or her own identity and rights…. The very scenarios often cited as justifications for human cloning are actually symptoms of the moral problem it creates. It has been said that cloning could be used to create "copies" of illustrious people, to replace a deceased loved one, or even to provide a source of spare tissues or organs for the person whose genetic material was used for the procedure. In each proposal we see a utilitarian view of human life, in which a human being is treated as a means to someone else's ends instead of as a person with his or her own inherent dignity. This same attitude lies at the root of human slavery.

There is not room in this blog to discuss more of the points Doerflinger raises, but they are disturbingly true. We either make duplicate people or we grow them and kill them before birth to harvest their organs and cells. This is allowed because they are cadaveric. The Newsweek article sets up this scenario:

“The scientists make a quiet agreement with a hospital, or an abortion clinic, to ask women to donate the cadavers of their aborted fetuses so patients can be helped. Or the scientists arrange to get unwanted embryos from fertility clinics. And these are only the arrangements that have been made public. If, as the saying goes, it's the things you don't know about that should make you worry, then experiments using human embryos should make you worry. (Newsweek)

We’ve talked about professors and researchers who form biotech companies to patent their research and make a mint off of abortion. Since their research is patented and private, their only oversight comes from within. Obviously, letting people who are using aborted fetuses for research impose their own restrictions presents a conflict of interest. However, this can occur for one simple reason:

Human fetuses are considered cadavers, so it is legal to use transplanted fetal cells such as neurons in experiments to treat disease. (Newsweek)

So is an embryo a fetus? Is a fetus a baby? It depends on what you want the law to do for your checkbook that day. Ultimately, it all comes down to the value the one in power has. The value of the child was left behind a long time ago.

On Monday, in part V of this series, we will take a closer look at current research laws.

***This is the fourth part of this series. Click here to read part I. Click here to read part II. Click here to read part III.***