Abstract
In order to understand the modern Jewish perspective on the cloning of human beings — this perspective is quite homogenous despite the many and great differences and discussions within Judaism — we must comprehend the basics of Old Testament and Jewish ethics. Ten basic ethical assumptions, which will be listed below, inform the ethical evaluation of cloning from a Jewish point of view.
I write this article as a Christian theologian and an Old Testament scholar but with a lot of sympathy for the Jewish position.
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References
See R. Cole-Turner, Human Cloning. Religious Responses (1997);
Y. Nordmann, Zwischen Leben und Tod — Aspekte der jüdischen Medizinethik (2nd ed., 2000);
B. Freedman, Duty and Healing, Foundations of a Jewish Bioethic (1999);
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There are three exceptions: idolatry, fornication, and murder: Babylonian Talmud Joma 82b; Pessachim 25a-b; Sanherdrin 74a.
See e.g. M.D. Tendier, Medical Ethics, A compendium of Jewish Moral (1975).
I. Jakobovits, Medical Experimentation on Humans in Jewish Law, in F. Rosner/J.D. Bleich (eds.), Jewish Bioethics (1979), 379; see id., Jewish Medical Ethics. A Comparative And Historical Study Of The Jewish Religious Attitude To Medicine And Its Practice (1975).
For the Old Testament traditions see H. Utzschneider, Der Beginn des Lebens — Die gegenwärtige Diskussion um die Bioethik und das Alte Testament, Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 46 (2002), 135–143; M. and H. Köckert, Ungeborenes Leben in Exodus 21, 22–25, Wandlungen im Verständnis eines Rechtssatze, in: Hübner/ Laudien/Zachhuber (eds.), Lebenstechnologie und Selbstverständnis. Hintergründe einer aktuellen Debatte, Religion — Staat - Kultur, Interdisziplinäre Studien aus der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 3 (2004), 43–73.
To the expression “fortieth day” the Soncino-Edition of the Babylonian Talmud notes: “Because until the morrow of the fortieth day of conception the foetus is considered as mere water, an embryo taking more than forty days to form.”
Jevamot 69b; Nidda 30b; Keritot 1: 3.
Cf. A. Wiedner, Abortion in the first forty Days, in Roodyn (ed.), Pathways in Medicine (1995), 136–138; Nordmann, supra note 1, 46.
See J.D. Bleich, Abortion in Halakhic Literature, in Contemporary Halakhic Problems, Vol. I (1977), 325–371;
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Of course the halachic decisions of modern rabbis integrate the discoveries of microbiology but only partly and very hesitantly.
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“Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so.”
Cf. C. Dohmen, Die Statue von Tell Fecherije und die Gottebenbildlich-keit des Menschen, Ein Beitrag zur Bilderterminologie, Biblische Notizen 22 (1983), 91–106;
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On the discussion over this (often misunderstood) term see N. Lohfink, “Macht euch die Erde Untertan”?, Studien zum Pentateuch, Stuttgarter biblische Aufsatzbände 4 (1988), 11, 28;
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See M. Welker, What is Creation? Reading Genesis 1 and 2, Theology today 48 (1991), 56–124.
For the legal situation in Israel see G. Ben-Or, The Israeli Approach to Cloning and Embryonic Research, Heidelberg Journal of International Law 60 (2000), 763–770.
M. Welker, Schöpfung und Wirklichkeit, Neukirchener Beiträge zur Systematischen Theologie 13 (1995).
For genetic screening and cloning see Rosner, supra note 1, 205–218; also M.D. Tendier, author of the classical monograph Medical Ethics — A compendium of Jewish Moral (1975), is a proponent of genetic engineering as stem-cell research (see e.g. http://www.jewishsf.com/bk010223/sfastemcell.shtml; http://reason.com/ml/ml051701.shtml).
E. Dorff, cited according to http://mishkantorah.org/parasha/5763/judaism_and_cloning.pdf. Cf. M. Broyde, Cloning People: A Jewish Law Analysis of the Issues, Connecticut Law Review 30 (1998), 503, 532–533, arguing that, once the technical complexities of human cloning are resolved, human cloning will be another form of assisted reproduction and is likely to be permitted by Jewish law.
In spite of the fact that official proclamations of the protestant and the catholic churches declare strict opposition against any research with embryonic stem-cells, there are different voices from other theologians, see e.g. R. Anselm/U. Körtner (eds.), Streitfall Biomedizin, Orientierung in christlicher Verantwortung (2003).
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Oeming, M. (2004). The Jewish Perspective on Cloning. In: Vöneky, S., Wolfrum, R. (eds) Human Dignity and Human Cloning. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6174-1_4
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