WHEREAS, Individuals and groups have announced recently that they are attempting to clone a human being through somatic cell nuclear transfer; and
WHEREAS, Noted scientific experts agree that attempts to clone a human being, if successful, pose a significant risk of producing children with severe disabilities and lethal deformities; and
WHEREAS, Efforts to clone human beings represent a decisive step toward substituting human procreation with biological manufacturing of humans; and
WHEREAS, So-called “reproductive cloning,” where the goal is a live-born human baby, does not meet biblical standards for procreation in which children are begotten, not made; and
WHEREAS, Some policies provide for experimentation on human embryos younger than fourteen days; and
WHEREAS, So-called “therapeutic” or “research cloning” would result either in the wanton destruction of human embryos developed for research purposes and/or would devolve necessarily into reproductive cloning in the privacy of a physician-researcher’s office; and
WHEREAS, The biblical witness declares that children are a gift from the Lord (Psalm 127:3-5) and are to be the offspring of a husband and wife (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:24; 9:1-2), not the result of asexual replication; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, June 12-13, 2001, express our abhorrence at attempts to clone a human being; and be it further
RESOLVED, That, consistent with our positions on both cloning and embryo research, we repudiate both reproductive cloning and research cloning of human embryos; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we urge Congress to enact a permanent, comprehensive ban on human cloning, making it unlawful to clone a human being, including a human embryo, and attaching severe penalties to attempts to clone human beings, including human embryos; and be it further
RESOLVED, That, with the exception of cloning humans and human embryos, we do not oppose the use of nuclear transfer or other cloning techniques to produce molecules, DNA, cells, tissues, organs, plants, or animals; and be it finally
RESOLVED, That we encourage policymakers around the world to make the cloning of a human being illegal among the entire human family.