Asking for a book.
April 6, 2015 2:33 PM Subscribe
Is a Jewish person's clone Jewish?
I've seen some scholarship on Judaism and cloning, but nothing yet that addresses the question of the Jewish identity of a human clone. My sense is that, just as in ordinary life, it comes down to one's mother -- but would that mean the baby's biological mother, who provided the DNA, or the one who carried and gave birth to the baby? I'm hoping someone can give me an informed perspective on this (insofar as that's possible).
(My book takes place in a city where everyone is a clone drawn from the same ancient genetic stock -- when people want to have children, they ask for an embryo to be implanted. So my hero is genetically identical to a specific, long-dead person, and he was born to a genetically unrelated mother.)
I've seen some scholarship on Judaism and cloning, but nothing yet that addresses the question of the Jewish identity of a human clone. My sense is that, just as in ordinary life, it comes down to one's mother -- but would that mean the baby's biological mother, who provided the DNA, or the one who carried and gave birth to the baby? I'm hoping someone can give me an informed perspective on this (insofar as that's possible).
(My book takes place in a city where everyone is a clone drawn from the same ancient genetic stock -- when people want to have children, they ask for an embryo to be implanted. So my hero is genetically identical to a specific, long-dead person, and he was born to a genetically unrelated mother.)
There's a treatment of this in section III of "What does Jewish law have to say about surrogacy?", which, of course, lists three different options for this question that you probably only thought two possible answers. Welcome to halachic interpretation.
You can find many other answers by Googling for [responsa "surrogate mother"].
posted by grouse at 2:42 PM on April 6, 2015 [4 favorites]
You can find many other answers by Googling for [responsa "surrogate mother"].
posted by grouse at 2:42 PM on April 6, 2015 [4 favorites]
According to this response on judaism.stackoverflow.com,
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 4:26 PM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
- Cloning -- Research indicates that, subject to more safety improvements, it will be possible for a woman to take her own skin or bone-marrow cells and create a gamete-like cells with only 23 chromosones that could be attached to the woman's own egg cell to create a perfect copy of herself. This could be a violation of the concept raised in Niddah 30 that there are three partners to the creation of a new soul, a man, a woman and Hashem. Cloning would appear to intentionally by-pass part of this Divine process. To my knowledge, this has only been studied by our sages from the perspective of unmarried women using in vitro fertilization to have children without having relations. But the decisions of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, zt'l, Nishmat Avraham, vol. 4, Even haezer 1:3, and Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt'l, cited in R.V. Grazi and J.B. Wolowelsky, “Parenthood from the Grave,” The Jewish Spectator 65:4 (Spring 2001, Aviv 5761), appear more concerned that the sperm donor might not be Jewish. So I am unaware of a precedential decision that is directly on point here.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 4:26 PM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
What do you mean by "Jewish"? Like many words, it has more than one meaning. Are you talking about race, ethnicity, religion ... ? Biologically, Jews are a distinct race/ethnicity. That's not specifically about the mother.
posted by John Cohen at 8:16 PM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by John Cohen at 8:16 PM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks, everyone -- this is just what I needed.
John Cohen, you're right to ask me to unpack the word. I was mostly thinking of culture and religion, but it's plain now that the question has so many additional vectors that I doubt the people in my book can have settled it either.
posted by thesmallmachine at 4:28 PM on April 7, 2015
John Cohen, you're right to ask me to unpack the word. I was mostly thinking of culture and religion, but it's plain now that the question has so many additional vectors that I doubt the people in my book can have settled it either.
posted by thesmallmachine at 4:28 PM on April 7, 2015
« Older How safe is leftover raw kitfo? | How can I win this appeal vs. my insurance company... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jquinby at 2:41 PM on April 6, 2015 [1 favorite]