Cloning

 With the recent announcement of a human cloning, so many question religious, ethical and scientific questions arise.
What exactly is cloning ?
Are there different levels of cloning ?
What are the arguments for and against human cloning ?
Which legal principles would Muslim legists evoke to deal with cloning ?
What is the Islamic perspective on the whole issue of cloning?

CLONING - Playing God or Scientific Progress

Since 1993, when an identical twin was produced by splitting a fertilized egg, and later in February 1997, when cloning of "Dolly" the sheep was announced, the issue of scientists "interfering in the process of divine creation" was publicly argued with great passion. However, when Clonaid announced its unsubstantiated claims of the birth of a cloned baby girl on December 27th, 2002 and a second one on January 3rd, 2003; cloning has returned to the forefront of medical debate with much intensity and urgency. The debate over whether scientists are "playing God" has probably never been more real than now. It seems that here too, scientists are working faster than ethicists.

Defining Cloning

The word clone comes from the Greek term klon meaning an offshoot, sprout or a twig. Scientifically, it refers to the procedure in which an exact genetic duplicate of an existing organism is produced. There are three basic types of cloning :

  1. Embryo cloning
    A medical technique where one or more cells are removed from a fertilized embryo and assisted to develop into one or more duplicate embryos. Twins or triplets are thus produced that have identical DNA. This has been done on animals and humans since the early 1990s.
  2. Reproductive Cloning (Adult DNA Cloning)
    A procedure intended to duplicate an existing animal. It has been used to clone the first mammal, a lamb (Scotland, 1997), a calf (South Korea 1998), twin calves (Japan 1999) and the first primate, a monkey (USA 2000). In this technique the DNA from an ovum is removed and replaced with the DNA from an adult animal. The fertilized ovum (now called pre-embryo) is implanted in a womb and allowed to develop into a baby. It is this technique that has been the most controversial debate in the area of bioethics.
  3. Therapeutic Cloning (Biomedical Cloning)
    When an egg is fertilized, the cells are all alike and as the cells divide they differentiate and become stem cells that eventually produce particular tissues and organs. In this method of cloning the stem cells are removed from the pre-embryo (the fertilized ovum then ceases to survive) with the intent of producing tissue or a whole organ for transplant back into the person who supplied the DNA. The goal of Therapeutic Cloning is to produce a healthy copy of a sick person's tissue or organ for transplant.

Cloning - Opposing Perspectives

Some consider all forms of cloning as immoral and most consider human cloning as sacrilegious, and as sowing the seeds of destruction. Various arguments have been forwarded against cloning and many of these have been countered by those who support cloning. Among the most common arguments are :

  1. God is the Creator not humans. We have no right to interfere with God's plan.
    Cloning is a technique using existing God-created material. Cloning is generating life from life and can be considered an extension of the now common routine in vitro fertilization procedures. Only God is Creator and there is thus no interfering in God's plan just as a person who may require heart surgery has his heart replaced by another heart, not his own. Could we deny the necessity of a transplant just because the heart that the person has may have become deceased.
  2. Cloning could create armies of identical Frankenstein-like monsters
    Cloning produces a genetically identical person, but will have a unique and obviously different personality formed by different learning and life experiences. Cloning allows for producing a genetic duplicate, but genetics does not wholly define a person and personality.
  3. Cloned genes present problems in the offspring due to the fact that the cloned adult genes would continue to age according to the age of the donor.
    Scientists would eventually resolve that issue.
  4. If the procedure of cloning gets into the wrong hands it could be abused, with disastrous consequences
    That applies to every invention; the car, the plane, the gun, banking system, internet ...
  5. The chances of success are very low. Too many fail before one succeeds. In the case of the cloning of the first mammal, the lamb "Dolly"; 277 eggs were used, 30 started to divide, nine induced pregnancies and only one survived. More than one-third of clones that survive suffer serious life-threatening health problems.
    Medical science has advanced quite a bit since 1997 and chances of success are much greater now.
  6. Loss of genetic variation. Too many people could end up as look-alikes.
    There are over 5 billion people in the world, and anyhow, how widespread could human cloning become?
  7. Loss of kinship as the clone does not really have an identifiable mother or father.

Evoking Legal Principles

Since legal, religious and ethical dimensions are inextricably interconnected in Islam, it is important to realize that jurists would carefully evaluate their legal reasoning of cloning to deduce a judicial decision. At least two basic principles would be,evoked to furnish a religio-ethical basis for their legal conclusion :

  1. Istihsaan - the principle of equity
  2. Maslahah - societal interest

Views of Islamic Authorities on Cloning

Muslim jurists fall into two categories:

  1. Those who think that all cloning (whether therapeutic or human) should be banned.
    Sheikh Mohammed Othaimin, senior member of the Saudi Arabian Council of Religious Scholars, responded to the birth of "Dolly" with the following statement: "I think that the lowest penalty imposed on those who invented cloning should be amputation of their hands and feet. Otherwise they should be executed. Cloning amounts to manipulation of humankind. It is the worst kind of corruption on earth."
  2. The vast majority of Islamic scholars who exercise great prudence in giving a Shari'ah-based opinion on the evolving issue of cloning.
    • They acknowledge the positive potential of embryonic and therapeutic cloning provided that there are no deliberate abuses. At a 1997 conference on cloning organized in Casablanca (Morocco) by the Islamic Fiqh Council, reached the following conclusion; " Cloning does not bring into question any matter of Islamic belief. Allah is the Creator of the universe but He has established the system of cause-and-effect in this world. Just as a person sowing a plant seed is not the creator of the plant, so the cloning technician is not the creator of the resulting organ or animal."
      Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi based in Emirates said that " Islam would not oppose the use of cloning to produce healthy body parts or organs needed to heal sick individuals. Cloning specific human parts such as heart and kidneys, for the purpose of treatment is permitted, recommended and rewarded by Allah."
      Ayatullah Muhammad Hussain Fadlallah of Lebanon stated that "it is false to say that cloning is an attempt to intervene in the divine creation. Researchers have not invented new laws, but have rather discovered new laws relating to the development of organisms, just as they discovered laws of in-vitro fertilization and organ transplants. We must emerge from the dark ages to which science is an anathema."
      Professor Abdul Aziz Sachedina of the University of Virginia made reference to Chapter 23 verses 12-14 of the Qur'an and stated that "human beings can actively engage in furthering the overall well estate of humanity by intervening in the works of nature, including the early stages of embryonic development to improve human health."
    • They oppose human cloning on the basis that it is fraught with medical risks as well as risks that undermine the fabric of inter-human relationships. It infringes on the individuality and identity of the clone, disrupting the stability of the social order, destroying the bases for blood relationships, which is the very foundation of the most important social unit, the family.
      This would obviously have serious repercussions on laws and regulations governing blood ties, marriage, and inheritance and on civil law.
      The al-Azhar stated, "Islam is not against technological advancement that benefits humanity, it prohibits only those negative elements that lead to negative consequences. Cloning for the treatment of illnesses is beneficial and does not contravene Islamic principles. Human cloning is prohibited. It can lead to disfigurations and monstrosities."

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