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Meanwhile, Back in the Brave New World
By Doug Patton
December 3, 2001

It is difficult to remember that once upon a time, before September 11, there were other issues about which we all cared very deeply. One of them was human cloning.

In poll after poll, a clear majority of Americans still oppose this procedure. They seem frightened by it, yet many cannot explain why. Those involved in this macabre industry know that with time, this will change, and so research goes merrily along.

Advanced Cell Technology, a for-profit Massachusetts biotechnology company, has announced that it has successfully cloned the first human embryo. But rest assured that they have "no plans to use cloned embryos to create babies." Right. Someone, somewhere, probably believes that.

The slippery slope arguments have been made for a generation now, and one-third of that generation is not here to participate in the debate. The same people who claim we have nothing to fear from cloning once scoffed at the idea of abortion on demand, for sex selection, convenience or other frivolous reasons. They told us abortion was necessary simply to eliminate the affliction of abused and unwanted children. It was necessary to give women equal rights and reproductive freedom. The folly of this "logic" has taken us right up to the brink of infanticide - partial birth abortion, the killing of normal, fully formed babies as they are being pulled from their mother's wombs.

There's an old saying that simply says, "Follow the money." The industry of death is no exception. For years, doctors who once took an oath to heal have been profiting from the killing of the innocent. With the advent of partial birth abortion, traffic in freshly harvested human organs is now common, thus netting these ghouls thousands of dollars from every abortion they perform.

Next on the slope came the notion of assisted suicide, cloaked in the high sounding language of "dying with dignity." The mainstreaming of so-called "mercy killing" spawned Dr. Jack Kavorkian, whose bizarre thinking eventually took root in Oregon, where voters passed the first doctor-assisted suicide law in the country.

Out of all the beliefs that human beings embrace, there really are only two opposing worldviews, and they have been in conflict in America for some time. One is the traditional Judeo-Christian view, which says that we are fallen creatures in need of the help of the redeemer God who created us in His image, with the power of choice. Because we chose evil over good and embraced rebellion, scripture clearly tells us that the human heart "is desperately wicked; who can know it?" To view the world from this perspective gives us a very clear picture of why people and things are the way they are. An Osama bin Laden becomes not an anomaly but the natural outgrowth of an unredeemed heart.

For the first 150 years of our nation's existence, we understood these principles as the basis for law and order. Free people who recognized their nature also recognized their need for self-restraint and looked to God for their help and redemption. These people were able to embrace the laws of the land and abide by them. Those who chose evil and lawlessness were restrained and no longer allowed freedom. And everyone understood why.

This is no longer the case, and it is the other view of the world that imperils us. This view looks at human beings through rose-colored glasses and says that they are all "basically good." We prefer to believe the best about ourselves, so now we try to assign nobility to everything we do. If we kill the unborn, it is to protect them from a miserable life or to preserve "rights." If we kill the elderly or the infirm, it is because we are merciful. And if we create life to destroy it, well, that's just the natural outgrowth of our quest to live forever.

Isn't it curious that those who choose to believe in the "man-is-basically-good" theory are the most cavalier with human life. An entire industry of genetic manipulation has grown out of the culture of death in which we now live. Abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and now human cloning - these are the seeds of our future planted long ago by moral relativists who somehow simultaneously believe that people are basically good but it's okay to kill them.

Human cloning is the next step toward creating a soulless brave new world in which everything is relative and there is no inequality because everyone has no right to be here.

Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a speechwriter and policy advisor to federal, state and local candidates and elected officials. His work can be viewed weekly on GOPUSA.

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