Daily Devotional – June 17

Christian Truth

Over twenty years ago, scientists first cloned a large mammal (a sheep named Dolly in 1996). Cloning is a process where the donor’s DNA is removed from the nucleus of a cell. The recipient’s fertilized egg DNA is removed and replaced with the donor’s DNA. The egg is then placed within the recipient’s womb. This will make an exact biological replica of the donor creature rather than the offspring being a blend of the characteristics of both the mother and father. Scientists have greatly improved their ability to clone creatures over the last twenty years, but it is still illegal in most countries to attempt to make exact replicas (i.e. clones) of ourselves. Why is this illegal, and if we could make an exact copy of ourselves, would such a person have a soul and be fully human? To answer such questions, one must consult an absolute source of truth outside of human opinion.

Let’s answer the last question. There is already a model for whether exact biological duplicates of human beings will have separate souls. Identical twins come from the DNA code of one egg that divides in such a way that two biologically identical human beings result. Yet, no-one would deny that, even though their DNA is identical, they are two separate people, having two different personalities, lives, and souls. In a similar way, a human clone, should we ever be foolish enough to monkey with God’s created biological machinery in order to produce one, would also have a soul and be accountable to God for his existence. Also, the process of cloning involves the killing of dozens, and sometimes thousands, of fertilized embryos in the effort to successfully produce one viable clone. This is why human cloning is and should be illegal. The entire process is a flagrant disregard for life and is the ultimate in dishonoring and ignoring our Creator - to whom all life owes its existence.

And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness :  and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him ; male and female created he them.

~ Genesis 1:26, 27 emphasis added

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.