Jewish Law on Stem Cell Research

Reproductive cloning and stem cell research have the potential to revive dead cells or repair severely damaged cells that perform important bodily functions. Stem cell research could allow for certain cells to be created and exchanged with a patient who is no longer able to use those cells. Patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease who are unable to send brain signals from the nerves to the rest of the body and remember vital information could get the cells needed to be cured of the disease.

Cloning or partial cloning of human beings could result in producing tissue or donor organs for people whose body and organs have failed them. The issue of cloning a full human being with the purpose of healing another person has been looked at favorably under Jewish law. Rabbis Eliot Doriff and Tendler believe that it would be permissible under Jewish law to clone another human being so that another human life could be saved through a bone marrow transplant or kidney transplant. The only stipulation that must be maintained according to these two rabbis would be that the parents of the cloned individual must treat the person with the respect and dignity of any regular human being.

Another interesting concept involved in the cloning process is gene manipulation which could be used as a benefit or detriment depending on its use. Gene manipulation involves the replacement of defective genes with healthy gene cells through somatic gene therapy. Stem cell research and the harvesting of embryos for the purpose of cloning or reproducing organs uses the same kind of treatment in which defective genes are being replaced. Gene therapy also finds itself under similar scrutiny as cloning and stem cell research because there is a struggle to prove that its benefits outweigh its detriments.

Rabbis have insisted that gene therapy can only be used in the Jewish community for therapeutic purposes and if the procedure is used, it cannot interfere with the Germ line. The Germ line refers to a sequence of cells in the human body that are constantly developing and changing and also contain genetic material that is passed down to the children. The Germ Line cells include the sperm, egg and zygote cells. The major detriment that can arise from changes to the germ line is a closer step toward eugenics and people selecting the characteristics of their children. The effects of gene therapy have been applied to Tay-Sachs patients who carry a disease that is transmitted to the child, leading to a short lifespan and painful death.

Stem cell research and cloning have many pitfalls. Cloning opens the door to eugenics and the ability to make human beings of specific races, eye color, skin and hair color, etc or have personal characteristics like intelligence or strength. There is also a danger that cloning can result in the loss of a person's individuality and could result in negative psychological effects on the original person being cloned. The desire to have certain characteristics of a person cloned could lead to a black market type of capitalism where there is a demand from the gene pool to obtain a certain kind of hair or eye color or race.