Cloning Human Beings. Religious Perspectives on Human Cloning.

摘要

In response to the cloning of a sheep in Scotland, President Clinton requested that the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) investigate and make recommendations on the prospects of human cloning by May 26, 1997. Citing matters of morality and spirituality, the President, on March 4, 1997, imposed a temporary moratorium on federal funding of human cloning research. This paper was prepared for NBAC to assist in its deliberations and policy recommendations. The report generated from this research is organized into five sections: (1) a brief historical overview of religious thought on the ethics of human cloning; (2) a discussion of selected themes among theological bioethicists that recur frequently in ethical evaluations of human cloning. These themes are derived primarily from the scholarly literature of the western faith traditions; (3) a summary of approaches to the theology, ethics, and policy of human cloning from ten major faith traditions; (4) an appendix containing an annotated bibliography of religious literature on human cloning in biomedical ethics; (5) an appendix containing a bibliography of materials used in preparation of this report.