JULIAN (YOEL) JAKOBOVITS

Cloning and Its Challenges

T he announcement in Scotland on February 23,1997 of the “cre-

ation” of Dolly has stimulated yet another layer of imagination in
the ever-more complex strata of actualized science fiction.1 By now
there is no scientific, absolute reason to believe that the cloning of
human beings is far off. Already, the milestone has generated questions
and concepts concerning the very definition of our humanhood in ways
that even the greatest philosophers of yesterday could never have con-
sidered. Anthropologist Margaret Mead once observed that sophisticated
language is a prerequisite for sophisticated thinking, and a fortiori for
expressing such thinking. Similarly, certain critical technological advances,
particularly in the biological sciences, have compelled us to think about
ourselves in ways far beyond what we could have prior to arriving at the
new frontiers.
When Baltimore’s William Cardinal Keeler recently participated in
an ecumenical forum to discuss the ethics of cloning, he was disturbed to
find that, in contrast to his own quite definite prohibitive stance, shared
by his Protestant colleagues, the Orthodox rabbi was not so ready to con-
demn cloning entirely. Later, the Cardinal expressed his surprise to a
senior rabbi who also was reluctant to countenance a permissive attitude
towards cloning. The latter eventually told me, in the name of R. Yosef
Shalom Eliashiv that cloning “is against the ruah. of Torah.” Apparently,
Ramban on Va-yikra 19:19 was cited in support of this attitude.
Indeed, the passage emphasizes that the Torah’s prohibition indi-
cates that crossbreeding violates the Creator’s plans by implying that the

YOEL JAKOBOVITS, M.D., is Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins

University Hospital and Medical School and the Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. He
has published numerous articles on Jewish medical ethics.
195 The Torah u-Madda Journal (9/2000)
196 The Torah u-Madda Journal

Creation needs our elaboration in order to achieve perfection. However,

with respect to cloning the reverse might pertain: cloning perpetuates
the species more completely than any other form of procreation and
cannot be compared with the diversification effects of cross-breeding.
Because it replicates the individual without the incorporation of any
other genetic ingredients, cloning should be thought of as having the
very opposite effect.
It appears to me that whether cloning per se is inherently moral or
ethical is not immediately evident in our sources. Doubtless, the mish-
naic axiom that declares hafokh bah va-hafokh bah ki kulah bah (Avot
5:25), indicates that directives regarding cloning are certainly not
beyond the scope of the Torah’s ethics. However, elaborating these prin-
ciples with accuracy will require more time.
A brief review of the methodology involved in cloning is in order.
Every cell, other than the germ cells of the testes and ovaries, contains
the entire complement of genetic material necessary to regulate the devel-
opment and operation of the entire organism. As cells differentiate into
specific tissues, the unused genetic material within each cell is dormant.
The process of cloning entails re-awakening the latent, inactive genetic
components, giving the cell the potential to create the entire being again.
Usually there are three crucial players involved in cloning. One indi-
vidual contributes the entire genetic contents of one of its non-germinal,
or somatic, cell’s nucleus. The resultant clone will be an identical replica
of this individual. A second individual may be used to contribute a
cell from which its native genetic material has been removed. The gene-
containing nucleus from the first individual is then inserted into the
gene-depleted cell of the second individual. This refilled cell is stimulated
by an ill-understood electro-chemical process and then inserted into a
womb—of the first individual, the second, or even a third—from which
it derives nutrients and in which it is carried to term and eventual birth.
The intuitive repulsion which cloning techniques often elicit is
more manifestly linked to the consequences of such technology than to
the technology itself. Halakhically problematic issues will continue to
arise and will require further study. Some of the issues which spring
to mind are:
• Who should be regarded as the cloned being’s parent: the donor of
the genetic material, or the donor of the nutritive non-genetic por-
tion of the cell into which the gene-containing nucleolus is inserted,
or the “mother” from whose womb the cloned being is born? Or
should the cloned being be more properly regarded as an identical
 Yoel Jakobovits 197

twin, albeit “born” many years later than the first “twin,” and there-
fore the parents are actually the same as the parents of the individ-
ual from whom the clone is “copied”?

From a halakhic point of view the question of parenthood impacts

several important issues:
• To whom does the clone owe filial kibbud av va-em responsibilities?
What kind of inheritance claims can the clone make? What laws of
shiv‘ah might apply to a clone and towards a clone? Assuming all the
participants were Jewish, the issue of religious affiliation would not
arise. But what if the genetic donor, or the non-genetic donor, or the
womb “owner” were not Jewish—what impact might these variables
have on the cloned being? These questions prompt a new set of vari-
ations on the yet-to-be-settled “old” issues of surrogate parenthood.

• To what extent, if any, should the cloned being be regarded as an

extension of the source being? Would, for example, property
belonging to the source being be automatically extended to the
ownership of the cloned being? One early proposal along these lines
had us imagine an elderly tycoon who wished to keep his wealth.
Could he clone himself in order to perpetuate himself beyond death
in order to “bequeath” his money to “himself ”? How might such
fanciful fiduciary rights play out vis-à-vis marriage? Would the
source being’s wife be married to his clone too? If so, could the wife
be said then to have two husbands, or are the source and his copy
really one and the same?
It seems safe to assume that a human clone would be considered a
living human being. There is no parallel to the golem beings whose status
in Halakhah has been discussed in several striking sources.2 Unlike
human clones, which are biologically human in every respect, the golems
were made of clay in a human-like form and infused by a super-natural
force. Killing a human clone would, presumably, constitute murder.
But consider this: there is no reason to believe that the cells used to
clone could not be harvested from the donor even after death, provided
that not much time has elapsed. Individual cells of a deceased person
are, of course, “dead” halakhically speaking, although they may remain
biologically “alive” for quite some time. What would be the status of a
cloned being which was made using the genetic contribution, or the
non-genetic contribution, from a dead source? Should this clone be con-
sidered alive? After all, it is fully alive biologically speaking!—it walks, it
198 The Torah u-Madda Journal

talks and it thinks! Or ought one to say that this being is a modern-day
ben peku‘ah, (an animal delivered posthumously from a slaughtered
mother) which, although alive, is considered halakhically dead, and does
not require sheh.itah before eating? This status of halakhic death applies
to the future generations which derive from a ben peku‘ah. Does the
same halakhic quirk apply to the descendants of a clone, whether they
are cloned themselves or created as the result of natural conception with
another clone of the opposite gender?
The scientific value of cloning technology goes beyond the science
fiction hype with which it is currently widely associated. One of the
greatest current challenges facing biologic researchers is to understand
the mechanism which turns on and off the activity of specific portions
of the genetic code. Broadly speaking, cancer and the wild replication of
viruses are thought of as disruptions of these regulatory control mecha-
nisms. Were these processes understood, one could envision cloning a
specific organ. This would lead the way to auto-transplantation of indi-
vidual organs without facing the additional hurdles of rejection and the
medical problems involved in its suppression. It is for this reason that
curtailing further cloning investigations altogether would not be in the
interest of humankind, assuming that suppression was actually possible.
The questions posed by cloning should be seen within the larger
context of the burgeoning ethical and halakhic challenges prompted by
the unfolding contemporary revolution in applied genetics. Funda-
mental theological and practical questions are raised by one of the most
ambitious scientific undertaking ever, the Human Genome Project.3
Our collective skills as humans—and as shomerei Torah—in facing some
of the issues raised by cloning, will serve us well as the even more diffi-
cult issues of the coming decades will surely confront us.4

Notes

1. Two excellently written popular overviews are: Gina Kolata’s Clone: The Road
to Dolly, and The Path Ahead (New York, 1998) and Lee M. Fisher’s Remaking
Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World (New York, 1997).
2. See, for example, the interesting review by R. Efraim Greenblatt in his
Responsa Rivevot Efrayim, Orah. H.ayyim, 7: #385. [See also John D. Loike’s
article in this volume–ed.]
3. For a fine annotated bibliography of many ethical issues, see M. C. Coutts,
“Human Gene Therapy: Scope Note 24,” Kennedy Institute Ethics Journal 4,
1(1994): 63-83.
4. Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul
(New York, 1994).