An "Ask the Preacher" article as it has appeared in the Santa Rosa Press Gazette (Milton, Florida). The author is Pastor Carl Gallups of Hickory Hammock Baptist Church in Milton, Florida. Click HERE to go to the Main Index page of Hickory Hammock Baptist Church to read many more such articles. This article is copyrighted by Carl Gallups and may be reproduced provided that copyright notice is given.



Dear Pastor Gallups, " With all the recent focus on and the controversy surrounding the cloning of humans...what do you say about this?" U.C. - Milton

Dear U.C., Every time man's technological knowledge and prowess increases, so do his responsibilities and problems. To almost any technology that one can think of, can be assigned both positive and negative attributes.

Medical and biological technologies certainly carry with them much potential for good along with the potential for outright evil like abortion, euthanasia and now...cloning technology.

I will admit that I do not have the medical or scientific expertise to speak fully on this matter. Nor do I think that all the information to be known about this topic is fully known by anyone to date. I do know, however, U.C., that God's Word is very clear about the principles of human dignity, value and the sacredness of life.

From all that I know so far on this topic, it would seem to me that the cloning of human beings for "research" and "medical" purposes is just a logical slide down the slippery slope that we jumped on in this nation some time back. The slide occurred when we decided that the human embryo was not a living, viable human being, but just a piece of "tissue" to be extracted, experimented with and discarded.

It is my understanding that the current cloning process is effective in less than 20% of the attempts in laboratory animals. What will be done with the 80% of human fetuses that are abnormal or "failed" attempts? Will we just throw these "accidents" in the garbage and try again and again? Or will we allow some tragedy of a cloning experiment gone wrong to live a horrible and exploited life like a circus side show freak?

And what happens if we ever become 100% efficient at cloning humans? Do we create a super-race? Do we eliminate those who live now who don’t meet the “cloned standard?” You can see that the possibilities for the evil uses of this technology are endless.

I really believe that this is a very sacred area of life that we would be better off leaving alone. The creating and giving of human life belongs only to the Lord.