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The Rev. Dr. Alfred Cioffi, bio-ethicist and priest of the Archdiocese of Miami, issued a call to action to 2003 convention attendees in Minneapolis, Minnesota, challenging them "as taxpayers and citizens" to participate in the debate on human cloning and stem cell research. This article was published in Catholic Woman magazine, November/December 2003.

What is Cloning?

Scientists remove the 23-chromosome nucleus from a mother’s egg cell and the nucleus of a 46-chromosome body cell is transferred in, creating a 46-chromosome zygote.

Reproductive Cloning

• Once the zygote grows to several hundred cells, she is implanted in a women’s uterus where it is hoped she will develop normally and a normal child will be born.
• The child has no father.

Therapeutic Cloning

• The artificially-created zygote grows to several hundred cells but is never implanted; rather, she is dismembered.
• The inner cell mass is extracted and used as embryonic stem cells.
• Scientists attempt to grow healthy tissues from the embryonic stem cells in order to replace damaged tissues in the human body.

The Ethical Issues

• Human cloning is a grave offense to the dignity of human procreation.
• Reproductive cloning intrinsically denies the child the natural right to have a father and instead to force the child to have up to three mothers.
• Therapeutic cloning involves the deliberate killing of some human beings in order to try to improve the health of some other human beings.
• The ends do not justify the means; the means have to be justified in themselves.
• In contrast with animal or plant cloning, human cloning cannot be ethically justified, no matter how good the intentions may be.
• Because human cloning has come out into the public arena, we can no longer claim ignorance. Rather, all of us will be held morally accountable on this issue.

Political Issues

• 2000—the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill banning both types of human cloning. That bill has gone to the Senate.
• 2001—President Bush publicly stated his opposition to all human cloning.
• 2001—U.S. Senate began discussing human cloning.
• September 11, 2003 put all other issues "on the back burner."
• Summer 2002—U.S. Senate resumed human cloning discussions which proved extremely controversial.
• Who is in favor of human cloning? Scientists, biotech and pharmaceutical companies, as well as people who think ill relatives or friends might be healed by therapeutic cloning.
• Who is against it? Mostly people who realize that regardless of the possible benefits, human cloning involves the deliberate killing of innocent human life.
• The U.S. Senate is split on the issue: 45 Senators oppose it; 45 are in favor; 10 are undecided [in 2003].
• 2003 elections—Senators are avoiding the issue.

While many in the medical and scientific communities have come down against reproductive human cloning, Father Cioffi cautioned that discussions about therapeutic human cloning emphasize the potential for solving a myriad of physiological problems. The fact that therapeutic human cloning requires the "deliberate killing of a human embryo in order to improve the health of some other human beings" is lost in the double-speak that refers to "somatic cell nuclear transfer" instead of human cloning. He suggested to convention attendees that they have an obligation to understand the basic biology of cloning and stem cell research so that they are not misled by the technical terms that obscure the facts of these medical research procedures.