Human Cloning: Playing God or Scientific Progress?

Book by Lester, Lane P., Hefley, James C.

Lester, professor of biology at Emmanuel College (Ga.), and Hefley, author of more than 70 books, present their views on the scientific benefits and ethical questions raised by human cloning. The authors open the book with an overview of the history of cloning, from the cloning of frogs from asexual tadpole cells in 1952 to the more recent cloning of the Dolly the sheep by Scottish scientists. Lester and Hefley explain the biological method of cloning, and they make the radical prediction that the process of cloning will in the future replace conception through human sexual intercourse. The authors argue that humanity is created in God's image and that the creation of humans by God is part of God's design for humanity. Human cloning would then, argue the authors, be playing God. In addition to cloning, Lester and Hefley discuss other reproductive technologies like artificial insemination, genetic testing and scientific breeding. In a final chapter, they contend that scientists can be categorized either as mechanists, theists or agnostics. Theistic scientists, according to this taxonomy, argue that God created the world from design and teach by word and example that life is sacred and God's plan for the world has a purpose. Unfortunately, this book has such a narrow perspective that it will appeal only to those who are already convinced that human cloning is synonymous with playing God.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Would you vote to admit a human clone to membership in your church? Lester and Hefley pose that and many other questions in this conservative evangelical consideration of cloning. The Bible may not answer every question that might come up, they say, but it provides the framework within which all questions can be answered. They then address the ramifications of human cloning and of the attitudes and philosophies that have brought us to it. Their destruction of the "It takes a village to raise a child" concept deserves considerable thought: Where does that approach leave loving parents, and how close are we to being required to get a license to have a child? Abortion is generally wrong, they conclude, but while in vitro fertilization is okay, artificial insemination by donor is, they find, essentially adultery. They see genetic testing and scientific breeding raising far more problems than they solve. Meanwhile, their answer to the question of church membership for clones may surprise some readers. William Beatty