I have noticed when it comes to these types of things, Christians seem to be against only what doesn't apply to them but they look the other way if it could benefit them somehow. Personally, I've always wondered how Christians can be against abortions but at the same time not against certain fertility treatments, namely the ones that go beyond just assisting the sperm to reach the egg (hormones, drugs, etc). If it's wrong to play God, go against God's will, and kill a human life, then why isn't it also wrong to play God, go against God's will, and create a human life? You're still messing with what God decided. If you are having difficulty conceiving, why not just accept that perhaps that is your lot in life and not go to extreme measures attempting to change the course God has decided your life should take the same way those who abort do (just with a different outcome)? Isn't it equally selfish to go against what God has designed your body to do within natural parameters? I know abortion wasn't mentioned in this post, but to me fertility treatments, cloning and abortion are all in the same field here.

I am still opposed to transplants.

@Red_Apocalypse_Horse@xanga - Actually full-out removing genes would cause death or severe retardation. Not immortality.

@docsfancyskip@xanga - If we use birth control and an unplanned pregnancy doesn't come to be, isn't that God's plan? isn't everything that happens God's plan?You can't argue that humans ever play God or change God's plan, because His plan will always be His plan whether or not we choose to use birth control. He knows from the beginning whether or not someone is going to be born or not. 

I'm all for cloning- I really think it's the only way to determine whether certain things actually are genetic or not.

I'm amazed that abortion enters into this conversation.  Assisting in life, ( in-vitro, in-utero) trying to create life (cloning), and taking life (murder, abortion) are not even in the same league. 

I'm stunned that so may Christians have connected the two in their minds somehow.  One comment (so far) even eluded to a similarity between a person who has, by being convicted of committing some heinous act,  earned a penalty of death according to the laws of our land, fully knowing that death was certainly a possible consequence for his actions, to the hideous murder of a defenseless and innocent baby.

Whether you agree with in-vitro, in-utero, cloning, birth control or not was the issue, wasn't it?   I can NOT fathom how abortion worked itself into this conversation amongst Christians in such a nonchalant and  cavalier manner.

You could argue that with in vitro fertilization or other aids to help people conceive children you are still leaving the development of the zygote up to chance or providence.  You're just helping the delivery.  Cloning is something altogether different.  You are not helping a sperm and egg meet and implant into a woman's uterus.  You are taking genetic material from one person to imprint on another cell.  A true to the sense of the term test tube baby.  You are not leaving anything in the development of the zygote up to chance of providence.  You are in a sense telling the zygote what kind of child to grow up to be.

You don't need to clone in order for the continuation of the human race.  You don't need IVF, either, but it could come to that some day and it, unlike cloning, still leads to DNA crossing.

You stated that clones aren't anything different than identical twins, but you're wrong.  Identical twins are the natural product of a zygote splitting.  Clones are the product of a human interfering with the process of creation.

You also stated that transplants are also a way of playing God, but that is a fallible comparison.  Transplants are used to prolong life.  You don't use cloning a child to cure or ameliorate disease directly (unless you say you are cloning to make a child for a bone marrow transplant, in which case that's just despicable).

My mum had several miscarriages before I was born. With the doctors' help, she received some special treatment so that her next baby (me) could actually stay and develop in her womb. If she hadn't been treated like that, I wouldn't be here.

For everybody who are against fertility or similar treatments, my message is this: I am happy to be born, to be alive and to be a child of God!

I definitely do not think that treatments that support new life are against God's will or Christianity or whatever. On the contrary, I think it is God's blessing that these days we have discovered the means to enable families with fertility problems to have offsprings. And in a similar way, i see no problems with organ transplans, either!

As for cloning, it is such a complex issue that I am still developing my point of view about it, this is definitely not something we can regard as a "black or white" thing.

AWESOME POST! Definately food for thought. You said so much, I don't even know where to begin.

My views: I do not think that cloning is right nor do I think that it is really in the will of God for homosexuals to visit sperm banks and embro cventers to create babies because they are unable to with their partners (I know this is a bit in left field). I think when we do this, we are playing God and asking God to bless something that He is completely against and then raise the children in this enviornment which is contaminating them.

On the other hand in cases of marriages where there is something physically wrong with the woman where she can't conceive but can carry a child, I look at it as God making a way out of now. Not all of these babies survive so they are even more of a miracle than those of us that were conceived the old-fashioned way.

I do however find it somewhat selfish for these couples to opt to go this route ( I work in a OB/GYN practice that does invitro)There are too many children in the world that do not have parents for us to use all the resources to be able to say that we have "our own" children when our children are not really our own but belong to God.

I in no way mean to offend any of those that were born via invitro or those that may have had the procedure themselves. Nor do I intend to offend the gays or their children or anyone else that may have been offended. These are just my personal views.

Another interesting part of your comment was the comparison between heart transplants and artificial inseminations: you've got me there. Culturally, it is acceptable (for most) and viewed as a God-given second chance for someone to obtain a new organ and be given a chance to start all over again. I realize that this is somewhat of a double standard.

I know that God uses people, places and things as He sees fit. I know that all things were made by God and without Him was nothing made so He allows transplants and such things so I can't really disagree with it if He has blessed it.

Don't most couples who go through fertility treatments do so because they cannot conceive naturally?

I don't think any of these things interfere with God's plan. They perhaps devalue life, and that is my problem with them, but the idea that you "play god" is just silly.  As if God's up there going: "Oh no, they transplanted a heart into that person, now he won't die at the right time! What am I going to do?"

Give me a break. God is in control of it all. He can decide whether any of this stuff works or not. Do we need to be responsible and seek His wisdom in it...certainly. Are we "interfering" with his ultimate plan? Not at all. What kind of God would we serve if the stupid decisions of man derailed His ultimate plan.

Finally, I say from experience that we cannot stop what God is doing. If it's someone's time to go it's his time to go.  My dad had lung cancer. They did chemo, radiation, removed his lung and declared him completely cancer free. A month later...he choked on a grape and died. It was his time.  Did all that chemo and radiation keep him around for 6 months longer than God intended...I think not!

Your titel is outrageiuosly loaded and doesn't deserve an answer.

CLoning and fertility treatments are merely scientific ways of helpiing life along. Thai nonsense that it is "playing God" doesn't wash as presumably, God would sttill have the choice of which treatmnet works and which doesn't.

Just utilise what sceintific advances we can. It is using our God-given minds after all.