John O'Connor

About the author: John O'Connor, a Roman Catholic cardinal, is the archbishop of New York.

The cloning of a human being would be unethical because it would not serve any necessary or beneficial medical purpose. The research needed to develop human cloning would produce many imperfect results, and it would be sinful to simply dispose of these "mistakes." In addition, if humans were successfully cloned, such persons would have no parents and would therefore be less than fully human in status. Further, scientists simply do not have the wisdom to direct the course of evolution.

We support all true progress in conventional medicine. It is common in biomedical literature to distinguish negative from positive genetic engineering. Negative genetic engineering cures a disease, removes a defect or alleviates a pathology. This is the tradition of Western medicine...