NEWS FEATURE: New Film Explores the Ethics of Cloning

c. 2004 Religion News Service LOS ANGELES _ The possibility of losing a child is every parent’s worst nightmare. But how far will parents go to bring that child back? In “Godsend,” a Lions Gate Films release opening April 30, the sudden and tragic death of 8-year-old Adam sends his parents into deep despair. In […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

LOS ANGELES _ The possibility of losing a child is every parent’s worst nightmare. But how far will parents go to bring that child back?

In “Godsend,” a Lions Gate Films release opening April 30, the sudden and tragic death of 8-year-old Adam sends his parents into deep despair.


In their desperation to reunite their family, Adam’s parents agree to a cloning procedure that will create an almost exact replica of their son.

For a while, the parents settle into life with their second son. But when the new Adam reaches his eighth birthday, his behavior begins to change dramatically.

“Godsend” explores the possibilities of human reproductive cloning and asks, what if the outcome isn’t always desirable?

Whether “Godsend” is an anti-cloning or pro-cloning movie will depend upon the viewer’s perspective. The ending is ambiguous and the story’s ethical message appears murky. After all, “Godsend” means miracle, but the same word also spells “God’s end.”

“I would hate to think that the movie is viewed as anti-stem cell research or as anti-scientific advancement in general,” says “Godsend’s” screenwriter Mark Bomback from his office in Santa Monica, Calif.

“The movie is really about the danger in not being able to check yourself when you find yourself on a road with something that is quite powerful,” Bomback says. “In this case, a scientist (Robert De Niro) has abilities that are far greater than his own ethics. It’s the temptation to go too far.”

Bomback actually developed the idea for the original screenplay when his wife needed medication from a fertility clinic. They now have two children.


“Reproductive technology is going to be an issue, whether we like it or not,” says Bomback, who comes from a family of physicians and was raised in the conservative Jewish tradition. Personally, he believes that cloning should not be used for reproductive purposes.

“The idea that you could replace someone you lost suddenly seemed to me to be the way into cloning as a hot (movie) issue,” he adds.

Indeed, cloning is already a hot issue. “Godsend” looks at the controversial technique of reproductive cloning by introducing the DNA of a (deceased) child into a human egg whose nucleus has been removed and implanted into the mother’s womb. The resulting hybrid cell develops into a normal embryo and presumably produces a replica of Adam (a name with a biblical basis).

While the United States has no federal law against cloning, scientists and religious groups are nearly unanimous in denouncing reproductive cloning to create babies. Many Americans agree: in a Gallup Poll survey conducted in May 2003, 90 percent of adults believed that cloning humans is morally wrong, although most were unclear about the differences between therapeutic and reproductive cloning.

While reproductive cloning has not been performed in humans, animal cloning produced Dolly the sheep, and a company called Genetic Savings and Clone is now duplicating cats.

But many cloned mammals fail to reach healthy adulthood (Dolly died after only six years). “Godsend” raises a similar issue about human reproductive cloning: what do you do with the ones that don’t work out?


“Godsend” is ambiguous on what happens when science goes wrong. The movie’s marketing executives, however, play up the theme of parental loss.

The marketers have also created a Web site, http://www.godsendinstitute.org, which appears to be a legitimate ad for a fertility clinic: it promises to “restore a life to families that have lost one” by creating a genetically identical fetus through reproductive cloning.

“When all hope is lost, come to Godsend,” the Web site tells grieving parents and offers a toll-free phone number.

According to Lions Gate, people have actually called that number for assistance.

“I think it’s engaging that they put this up as a Web site without making clear that it’s a hoax,” says Ronald Cole-Turner, a professor of theology and ethics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ.

Cole-Turner is co-editor of the recent book, “God and the Embryo: Religious Voices on Stem Cells and Cloning,” published by Georgetown University Press.

Cole-Turner believes that the clinic’s Web site provides intimation into the future. “Web sites like that are coming and they really will be legitimate. What’s it going to be like to be a grieving parent who clicks on those buttons?” he asks. “It puts us in their shoes.”


That “Godsend” starts with a story of parental grief is one of the great strengths of the movie, according to Cole-Turner. But to present cloning as a horror film, he says, is a disservice to science and reality.

“What I really want to have happen is for all these people who are against cloning to say no to a grieving parent,” he says. “At the same time, if I’m ministering to a grieving couple, I’ll encourage them not to use cloning. I’ll (instead) encourage them to accept the grief.”

DEA/JL END ALEISS

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