Playing games with God

Last weekend we were shocked when scientists claimed it would not be long before their colleagues could produce humans from cloned embryos. They said it would perhaps be much easier than the cloning of Dolly, the sheep created recently by Scottish researcher Dr. Ian Wilmut. This news may sound unbelievable but it is happening and makes us feel as though the clock has been wound deep into the future.

The conclusion was made after genetic scientists in Oregon, USA, successfully produced advanced primates from cloned embryos in the form of two healthy monkeys.

The research team at the Oregon primate research center was led by Dr. Don Wolf who also heads a human in vitro fertilization laboratory. The Oregon research differs from Dr. Wilmut's work in that the monkeys were cloned from embryos, while Dolly was cloned from a cell taken from the udder of a pregnant ewe.

Experts said the technique of cloning embryos is scientifically very close to in vitro fertilization which has become increasingly common for childless human couples. And the cloning of monkeys, which are genetically far closer to humans than sheep, has raised moral and ethical questions. In Washington came a demand for the U.S. to join Britain and other countries in passing new laws to ban human cloning. President Bill Clinton asked his medical scientific advisory committee last week to report back within six months on the state of cloning and genetic research, and recommend whether new laws were needed.

Scientists have solved no problem by their cloning activities but rather have created a problem which makes their fellow earthlings awestruck. By any moral standard and religious teaching, cloning humans is morally and ethically unacceptable. The question is can human beings, the creation of God Almighty, take over His absolute right of creating humans?

Many people have been confused by the cloning activities, while others have tried to find which section of the Holy Book scientists are trying to mock. Others believe that in the future theologians will be even more shocked by scientists' adventures than the latter's efforts to understand the secrets of God's creations comprehensively.

In June 1994, the Jakarta-based Institute of Religious and Philosophical Studies discussed the technology of genetic engineering and the future of human beings from an Islamic perspective and gender analysis. Experts expressed concern over the advancement of biotechnology, particularly in the field of genetic engineering such as cloning technology, because it was certain to create an ethical problem. One of the participants suggested that some scientists now dared to play games with God.

A law proposed by Clinton would only be reactive in nature because the resourceful and initiatory scientists would continue to invent and create new controversies. A better solution may be to develop a balance between scientific progression and religious values but this sounds highly impossible in the West, where scientists do not care so much about morality, much less religion.

What we should do is encourage scientists to do something beneficial for mankind such as find a cure for AIDS, cancer and other incurable diseases instead of creating more problems.