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06583 November 9, 2006
NCC calls for worldwide ban on human cloning
Body also seeks greater oversight of bio-weapons development
by Jerry Van Marter
ORLANDO, FL - The National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) General Assembly has called for a worldwide ban on human cloning.
At a Nov. 8 plenary session, the assembly also called on the U.S. Congress to create a National Science Advisory Board for Bio-defense to oversee and regulate governmental and private development of biological weapons in this country.
It also called on governments, research institutions and scientific agencies to convene and international forum to explore ways to diminish the threat that biological weapons pose around the world.
The actions came in the wake of the assembly's adoption of a new NCC policy on human biotechnologies entitled, "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made."
The policy, which supplements a 1986 NCC policy statement, has been developed over the last three years by a 16-member committee chaired by Clare J. Chapman of the United Methodist Church. Presbyterians on the committee were the Rev. Peter Sulyok, former coordinator of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy and Elder Jacqueline Cho.
"We offer this policy to our member communions so that they may be faithful advocates that all biotechnology tools will be used for the benefit of all God's children," Chapman told the assembly.
The policy - and the two resolutions - were adopted unanimously and with no debate.
Supporting the human cloning resolution, Chapman said Christian groups around the world "are looking to the United States for clear leadership that signals that human cloning will not take place."
Many countries have already banned human cloning, including Canada, Australia and Germany. The United Nations General Assembly has also expressed its opposition. President George W. Bush has said he would sign legislation banning human cloning.
"In our current deregulated environment, tens or hundreds of thousands of 'failed human clones' could be created in the interest of someday cloning a human being that develops into adulthood," the resolution states. "This future offends our moral sensibilities and diminishes us all as human beings. Human beings are not a means to an end, and certainly not experiments along a path to a dubious future."
On the bio-weapons resolution, Chapman noted that "the only terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 was the use of high-grade anthrax spores which killed two people and resulted in enormous expense, both psychological and financial." The anthrax spores were traced to U.S. military research laboratories.
The resolution notes that most bio-weapons research in the U.S. is highly classified under the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security "with little transparency, scientific oversight, nor comprehensive scientific value assessment."
Further, the resolution states, bio-weapons research and development "diverts" funding, scientists and facilities away from "beneficial research."
The resolution calls for the oversight board to be housed in the Department of Health and Human Services.
The policy includes 35 recommendations calling on churches and their pastors and members to study biotechnology issues in light of scientific, theological and pastoral concerns raised by rapid advances in biotechnological research.
"When we consider the moral and ethical dimensions of the human applications of current biotechnologies, we need to have an accurate understanding of the science on which they are based," the policy states. "Moral and ethical considerations also require an understanding of the social and regulatory contexts in which such biotechnologies and their human applications are emerging and developing."
Chapman said the World Council of Churches Central Committee recently agreed to convene an international forum on issues raised in the NCC policy.
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