However wise we are in understanding the physical world, we definitely do not have the scientific tools to infer that that there is no definite difference between animal and human. According to surveys, most people are opposed to experiments on human-animal hybrids. They surely recognise that there is a difference between animals and humans – a distinction we must not blur. If we rely entirely on physical characteristics and believe we are simply descended from animals[1] we have no way of making a distinction. We learn from theology that here is a God-determined distinction, and therefore we should do nothing that confuses that distinction, such as the experimentation with human-animal hybrids.

Briefly, those who favour giving science freedom to advance in genetic technology emphasise the potential huge medical benefits. Some medical researchers dismiss this as 'hype' saying that all that is claimed for this technology is greatly exaggerated. I am not qualified to engage in this argument. I merely note it.

Those opposed to giving science freedom to advance genetic technology emphasise the sanctity of life at its earliest stage and fear the ‘slippery slope’ into eugenics. [2]

First I need to say something about Human Reproduction and differentiation. It is important that those who are involved in the ethical discussions should be aware of this scientific point.

In reproduction male sperm and female ovum combine to form new embryo. The nucleus of this new embryo is a new DNA code, which is derived from both mother and father. For the first 14 days this embryo divides and multiplies but is not a miniature human being. It is more like a ‘recipe’[3]. Each cell has the same DNA code. Each cell has the potential to form any part of the body. At 14 days, the cells ‘differentiate’. Different parts of the code in each cell are switched off and so each cell now ‘knows’ what part of the body it is to form. What differentiates a skin cell (say) from a heart cell (say) is the parts of the code that are switched off. At this stage of ‘differentiation’ (a great mystery[4]) we have the beginnings of a human being in miniature.

In Vitro Fertilisation

This is the use of artificial techniques to join an ovum with sperm outside (in vitro) a woman's body to help infertile couples to have children of their own. The basic technique of IVF involves removing ova from a woman's ovaries, fertilising them in the laboratory, and then inserting them into her uterus. The first ‘test-tube baby’, Mary Louise Brown was born in ml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />

England

in 1978. Many ova are removed from the womb and fertilised. Only one or two are returned to the womb. The remaining ones either are discarded or made available for experiments.

Reproductive Cloning

This is not used for humans yet. A cell is removed from the skin (say) of a mature person and its DNA is put in the nucleus of a new cell (the cell’s own nucleus having been removed.) An electric current or chemical is used to fuse the new nucleus with the egg which is ‘tricked’ into accepting it. This mature differentiated[5] skin DNA then undifferentiates (how this happens is a mystery). Then the new egg is put in the womb.

So now we have an egg with a DNA derived not from a loving relation between male and female but from one person’s skin (say). This is one of the main ethical problems of reproductive cloning. The new baby will be a clone or twin of the life that gave cells of skin.

This process was used to produce ‘Dolly’ the sheep - which died early of old age related illnesses.

Reproductive cloning of humans is dangerous and illegal in the

and also illegal in most of the world.

Therapeutic Cloning

This is legal in

but each case needs special permission from, and after application to, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

Its procedure is potentially the same procedure as for Reproductive Cloning but the new cell is only allowed to divide and grow up to 14 days - that is still in a pre-differentiated state. In the 14 days stem cells are ‘harvested’ and cultured. Being undifferentiated, they can be used indefinitely as (1) a source of tissue for any part of the donor’s body or (2) for researching causes of, and cures for, diseases. These undifferentiated cells are called stem cells and have the same DNA code as the donor and therefore there is no danger of rejection of the implanted tissue.

These stem cells are not embryos - detached from the embryo’s outer layer, they have no potential to grow into babies. For 14 days the embryo, before being killed, is a source of stem cells.

Ethical issues with therapeutic cloning involve:

(2) The status of this undifferentiated embryo - soon to be discarded. Is it human?; deserving of some respect but not as a ‘human’?; deserving no respect?

Those who deny that it is human say that the pre-differentiated embryo can still be induced to form twins - so it is not one ‘self’.

Opponents say there is no need to use artificially produced embryos to get stem cells. They are present in the blood and bone marrow of an adult.

The response is often ‘yes’ but the embryonic stem cells are more flexible and easier to work with. Potential results from embryonic stem cells are greater than stem cells taken from mature bone marrow.

Embryo and Genetic Screening

Ethical Issues

Should parents know in advance of any potential or certain genetic disease in their unborn baby? For example a childhood disease, or, late onset Huntingdon's or early onset Alzheimer's. Would you like to know about your future? If you were told you had a genetic disease, should you have children? If you already have children should you tell them? Should your insurance company have the right to know? What about information on government databases and identity cards?

Embryo Screening and Abortion

At present abortion for a diagnosed serious disease is allowed up to birth. What counts as serious? Critics fear the slippery slope. Does an easily cured cleft palate count as serious? No, but some abortions have been carried out for that reason.

What about people with genetic defects we know? Should they have been killed in the womb? My wife and I have a niece with a very serious genetic disease. However, although now losing her sight and in a wheel chair she is a happy girl who has brought out a great deal of love in her family.

Saviour Siblings and related ethical issues

Parents have a sick or dying child. A tissue match from a compatible child might cure him/her. Several eggs are taken from the mother’s womb (some may have been left over from previous IVF) and a match is sought and found. The match must be compatible and not contain the defective gene of the sick child. The other eggs are discarded.

Will the new child feel it was chosen just for its ‘spare parts’? Will it be happy or unhappy that it was born to save another, rather than born only for the normal reasons? Is the new child there as a commodity? Surely its own attitude of self-giving or resentment will determine the answer as to how it develops as a human being.

Designer babies - a Post-Human Future?

If embryos can be selected for qualities that could help a sibling, what about other qualities such as: gender, intelligence, height and athletic ability?

What about future science allowing us to engineer our feelings, eliminating phobias, guilt feelings, feelings of horror at genetic engineering, revulsion that we are no longer human?

The powerful could engineer happy and contented slaves who do not regret the loss of an earlier humanity. Possibilities like these are taken very seriously by some academics especially Dr. Nick Bostrom of Oxford University who favours a post-human future as long as the science is guided 'morally'. I asked him: Who guides the morality?

A warning is given in Francis Fukuyama’s book, Our Post Human Future. The book’s subject is the biotechnology revolution - its promises and dangers. With developing techniques for genetic engineering and perhaps designer babies, we face the questions: What is it to be human? How do we differentiate between right and wrong?

Fukuyama believes we can discern from nature a ‘factor X’, the essence of humanity. In his view it consists of a combination of language, emotions, and the ability for abstract reasoning.

He concludes that any biotechnology must not interfere with these characteristics of our species. If they do they will have produced a ‘non-human’ being. Even if he is right that these qualities do constitute true humanity, he does not say why they should be valued. Why should humanity be valued?

As philosophers since Hume have realised, one cannot get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ or ‘are’.

The statement: ‘This is what people ought to be’ does not follow from the statement: ‘this is what people are’.

A Christian Perspective

Humans should not play God. This is a common objection to biotechnology. However all medical techniques involve interference with the course of a decaying physical nature. Maybe (being in the image of God) we are meant to be creative?

However, when God created creatures in His image for love and fellowship, He did not clone Himself!

Christian theology cannot give all the answers to the difficult ethical questions that face medics and geneticists in their clinics, hospitals, and laboratories. Lord Hailsham reminds us [6], even if we are under the authority of God, He allows us free will and rational discussion. Perhaps, in many cases, there is no simple right answer.

¨ Genesis 1 teaches us we are made in the Image of God. Our humanity is not an accident.

¨ The image of God is best seen in Christ who is ‘the Image of the Invisible God’ (Colossians 1:15).

¨ Reproduction should be from a loving committed relationship between a man and woman.

¨ John the Baptist was ‘filled with the Spirit, even from his mother's womb.’ (Luke 1:15).

For you formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance.

It is the exposition of these great facts of theology that should enable doctors and geneticists to have the perspective they need to make the ethical judgements they face.

Christian theology cannot determine all that is right and wrong in biotechnology but it can give the basis needed to have a rational discussion and make difficult decisions.

[1] See my review of The Blind Watchmaker and aticle on Intelligent Design.

[2] Eugenics was the attempt by the Nazis to produce the perfect ‘race’ and therefore practicing a discrimination against the ‘imperfect’.

[3] Richard Dawkins' word for this living entity.

[4] Each cell in my body (there are trillions of cells in each human body), contains the same DNA computer program that determines, as I grow in my mother's womb, my physical characteristics. How is it then that, at the time before any of my limbs have begun to form, that cells which become part of my arms (say) know they are there for the benefit of my arms and those in my toes (say) know that they are there for my toes? Biologists call this the problem of `differentiation' and it is still a great enigma. A very full and technical discussion of research into the riddle of `embryonic differentiation' is given in an article by Robin Halliday, 1990, (CSIRO Laboratory for Molecular Biology, Sydney, Australia) `Mechanisms for the Control of Gene Activity During Development'. Is there another plan or control greater than the DNA that is switching on the parts of the DNA relevant to finger growth in the cells of my fingers while keeping the parts of the same DNA that have to do with the growth of other parts of my body switched off? If there is this greater plan where is it located? Please note that although the example of the human nose, fingers and toes are given here, this problem relates to most forms of life.

Many falsely assume that the DNA is merely a scaled down version of the living creature, or that the creature is a scaled up version of the DNA. This is not so. Research Chemist Ernest Lucas tells us: "The single fertilised egg does not have miniature arms and legs. These new structures appear later as the cells multiply and divide". (Science and the New Age Challenge, page 102.) As well as the reason given in the previous paragraph, complicated and wonderful though the DNA may be, it cannot, of itself, account for the enormously greater complexity of many parts of my physical body. Writing about the brain Richard Dawkins, in his preface to `The Blind Watchmaker', tells us: "The brain with which you are understanding my words is an array of some ten million kiloneurones (ten thousand million neurones). Many of these billions of nerve cells have each more than a thousand `electric wires' connecting them to other neurones." Professor Ambrose in `The Nature and Origin of the Biological World, page 152 tells us: (The brain) is like 500 million telephone exchanges all connected properly. The connections possible are 101,300,000,000,000. It might even seem, that in order for the DNA to be changed into an individual life form, a set of mechanisms more complex than the DNA must operate on it. (See Hofstadter D.R., 1980, Gödel, Escher and Bach, page 160.) In this case the various parts of the DNA would serve as triggers for these mechanisms. So where could this greater mechanism be which controls and is controlled by the DNA?!

Paul Davies writes:

If every molecule of DNA possesses the same global plan for the whole organism, how is it that different cells implement different parts of that plan? Is there, perhaps, a `metaplan' to tell each cell which part of the plan to implement? If so, where is the metaplan located? In the DNA? But this is surely to fall into infinite regress. (The Cosmic Blueprint, page 103.)

It was this problem that prompted Rupert Sheldrake - research biochemist and formerly Fellow of Clare College Cambridge - to propose `morphogenetic fields' that he claimed must surround each living organism influencing their development. He further believed that these fields even transcend the bounds of space and time so that behaviour patterns of previous members of a species affect the development of new members of the species. His theories go so much against the materialist presuppositions of orthodox science that they have been largely rejected. A very good summary and assessment of Sheldrake's views is given by Ernest Lucas, Science and the New Age Challenge, 1996, Chapter 8.

However the problem of differentiation remains. It is discussed in illuminating detail throughout Hofstadter's Gödel Escher and Bach, 1980. Paul Davies wonders whether the DNA acts as a `receiver' rather than the source of the genetic information. (The Cosmic Blueprint page 106.) If he is right where is this greater information? What is its source if not in the individual cell?

[5] For an explanation of 'differentiation' see the extended footnote above.