6:01PM - Do clones have souls?
Last week I mentioned the issue of thereapeutic cloning that is currently before Parliament. One of the difficulties associated with this issue is that of the status of an embryo clone. In particular, does it have a soul? And how could we know for sure?
I would argue that human beings come into existence at conception, and regardless of where the soul comes from, it is united to the embryo at that moment. Yet in somatic cell nuclear transfer there is no "point of conception" – the cell only starts to divide after stimulation from electrical impulses. Moreover, since we still do not know whether human cloning is possible, we do not necessarily have a mandate to speak of the cloned embryo as a "potential" human being.
On the other hand, Richard Corbett notes that any babies born from human cell nuclear transfer embryos will be fully human, meaning not monsters; made in the image of God, meaning not abominations; answerable to God according to their abilities, meaning not robots and not to be regarded as the means to an end.
Anyway, all of this gave me an idea for a movie. A couple have the first ever cloned baby, (whom they call, for example, Damien) and slowly realise, to their horror, that the boy has no soul:
