Sacred body? Stem cell research and human cloning

Ecumenical Review, The, July, 2002 by Heinrich Bedford-Strohm

The second reason for the validity of the fifth position is a consequence of the theological reflexion in which we have engaged. If human dignity is something which cannot be rooted in any empirical characteristic of a human being, but is something attributed to a human being through a relationship established by God, then this cannot be without consequences for the status of early human life. It means that human dignity cannot be based on reaching a certain state of biological development, be it the exclusion of development as twins, or the development of a brain, or the beginning of consciousness.

Therefore in deciding when human life is worthy of protection, the only approach which is not arbitrary is to take fertilization at the point in time at which the new human being comes into existence. We have seen that there are also theological reasons which must not to be neglected and which lead to this conclusion.

Accepting the finiteness of human existence

Our ethical reflection on human embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning leads to the conclusion that these new techniques are in conflict with ethical norms, because they use early human life as a means to achieve an external end. This conclusion does not deny the good ethical reasons which can be named in favour of such techniques. Certainly there can be no doubt about the high ethical value that medical efforts to alleviate human suffering enjoy. Indeed, in the biblical tradition, human beings are never simply called to accept passively their fate, but rather to shape it with the abilities which God has given them.

This vocation of human beings as shapers of their existence, however, becomes destructive if they neglect the ethical "points of orientation" which God has also given them. The story of the tower of Babel is the best example of this danger. The affirmation of human dignity has come to be a widely accepted point of ethical orientation, serving as a barrier against the all-too destructive human desire for power. This ethical perspective received many of its impulses from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Therefore it is more than appropriate if the Christian churches watch carefully how culture deals with ethics, and lift up their voices whenever they see human life treated as a goods in a medical and technological market, rather than as an end in and of itself.

The temptation to overcome human finiteness by any available means seems to have accompanied humanity from the very beginning. The biblical creation story describes Adam and Eve neglecting the prohibition of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There is a second tree in this story: the tree of life. It is often overlooked that the tree of life is the reason why God drives Adam and Eve out of the garden Eden and places the cherubim at its entrance:

   Then the LORD God said, "See, the man has become like one of us, knowing
   good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the
   tree of life, and eat, and live forever." Therefore the LORD God sent him
   forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
   He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the
   cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of
   life (Gen. 3:22f.).