CSDC 236

An issue of particular social and cultural significance today, because of its many and serious moral implications, is human cloning. This term refers per se to the reproduction of a biological entity that is genetically identical to the originating organism. In thought and experimental practice it has taken on different meanings which in turn entail different procedures from the point of view of the techniques employed as well as of the goals sought. The term can be used to refer to the simple laboratory replication of cells or of a portion of DNA. But specifically today it is used to refer to the reproduction of individuals at the embryonic stage with methods that are different from those of natural fertilization and in such a way that the new beings are genetically identical to the individual from which they originate. This type of cloning can have a reproductive purpose, that of producing human embryos, or a so-called therapeutic purpose, tending to use such embryos for scientific research or more specifically for the production of stem cells. From an ethical point of view, the simple replication of normal cells or of a portion of DNA presents no particular ethical problem. Very different, however, is the Magisterium's judgment on cloning understood in the proper sense. Such cloning is contrary to the dignity of human procreation because it takes place in total absence of an act of personal love between spouses, being agamic and asexual reproduction⁵³⁴ Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy for Life (21 February 2004), 2: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 3 March 2004, p. 7.. In the second place, this type of reproduction represents a form of total domination over the reproduced individual on the part of the one reproducing it⁵³⁵ Cf. Pontifical Academy for Life, Reflections on Cloning: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 1997; Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, The Church and Racism. Contribution of the Holy See to the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, 21, Vatican Press, Vatican City 2001, p. 22.. The fact that cloning is used to create embryos from which cells can be removed for therapeutic use does not attenuate its moral gravity, because in order that such cells may be removed the embryo must first be created and then destroyed⁵³⁶ Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Eighteenth International Congress of the Transplantation Society (29 August 2000), 8: AAS 92AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 92 (2000) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (2000), 826..