Health/Medical Issues

The following lesson is intended to span roughly two weeks of instruction. The organizational principle of the lesson is that of an outline with suggested discussion question formatted as

• Question
  • Possible answer or points of discussion

Objectives

• Students will take a Godly perspective on cloning.
• Students will take a Godly perspective on Embryonic Stem-Cell Research.
• Students will take a Godly perspective on medication.

Main Body

Cloning

Cloning Animals

• What command is given in Genesis 1:28?

Cloning Humans

• Is there really a difference between humans and animals? What does the Bible say?
  • Genesis 1:27 makes it very clear that God created man differently than humans. God created man in His own image.

• According to Genesis 1:26, what dominion should humanity exercise?
  • Genesis 1:26 commands humanity to exercise dominion over the animal kingdom. However, nowhere does the Bible command humanity to exercise dominion over humanity. Since humanity is different than the animal kingdom there are different rules that apply.

Is cloning murder?

One of the biggest problems with cloning humans is that the cloning process requires the murder of a significant number of humans. The cloning process generally involves the fertilization of a significant number of eggs. In fact, some scientists argue that harvesting enough eggs is one of the biggest hurdles to human cloning.. What is significant for our discussion is the fact that each fertilized egg represents a person and therefore destruction of fertilized eggs represents the destruction of a person. If a scientist fertilizes 1000 eggs and then keeps 10 of the strongest eggs for further testing they have effectively killed 990 humans.

Overstepping Our Bounds

• Many people take Isaiah 14 to be a passage that describes the fall of Lucifer. What sin did Lucifer commit in Isaiah 14:14?
  • Lucifer, in his pride, tried to take the place of God.

• According to Genesis 1:26-27, what template did God use for the creation of man?
  • Man is made in the image of God.

• Who is qualified to build something whose template is God Himself?
  • Only God is qualified to construct man.

• According to Genesis 1:28 what additional command did God give to man and woman?
  • God called on Adam and Eve to reproduce but notice that he called on both of them to reproduce. God's design for reproduction is for a man and women to do so. Natural reproduction creates genetic diversity. In fact, in-breading is illegal largely because the lack of genetic diversity leads to significant problems. Cloning is no different. God's design was for children to share the genetic code of both parents.

Embryonic Stem Cells

A stem cell is an unspecialized cell that has the potential to become many different specialized cells. There are two types of stem cells that often receive attention. Adult stem cells are located throughout the body and are what is commonly called multi-potent. That is, an adult stem cell can transform into many different (multi) cells. Embryonic stems cells are found in embryos and are totipotent because they can change into anything. For this reason embryonic stem cells are of particular interest to individuals trying to cure disease.

Remember that, naively, disease occurs when some portion of the body is failing. Stem cells provide a particularly interesting option because a stem cell could be turned into a highly specialized cell and used to replace the failing cell in the diseased body. However, there are some significant problems:

The process that the embryo must go through to knit cells together into smoothly working and precisely functioning tissues and organs is more than just “turning on” a cell and telling it to make this tissue or that organ. Multiple cells must “turn on,” then “turn off,” and then rearrange multiple times to produce the final perfect product. Research with embryonic stem cells has shown that process to be beyond our understanding at this time. Another disturbing consequence of using embryonic stem cells has been that once they are “turned on,” they are unable to be “turned off.” The result has been the development of rapidly growing tumors and other serious side effects.

• What do Psalm 51:5 Psalm 139:13-16 tell us about an embryo?
  • These verses indicate that even an embryo is a person.

In order to harvest embryonic stem cells, the embryo must be destroyed. Therefore, as Christians we cannot endorse this practice. Furthermore, we must realize that the current hype over embryonic stem cells is largely hype.

Some Denominational Perspectives

• The United Methodist Church supports Embryonic Stem Cell Research provided embryos are not created solely for the purpose of harvesting embryonic STEM cells. Specifically, they "urges national governments to pass legislation that would authorize funding for derivation of and medical research on human embryonic stem cells that were generated from IVF embryos and remain after fertilization procedures have been concluded."

• The southern baptist convention has adopted a resolution that "strongly support[s] stem cell research that does not require the destruction of human embryos or put them at risk in obtaining human stem cells;"

• The Roman Catholic Church opposes "any research that exploits or destroys human embryos."