Human Cloning: Reality or Fiction? | David M. Rorvik, In His Image: The Cloning of a Man

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More important than the book itself is the furor it raised. When In His Image was published, people were forced to ask some provocative questions: Is human cloning actually possible? What are its social, moral and religious implications? What psychological problems will a human clone and his parent/twin encounter? What benefits can come from human cloning? Mormons too began asking questions: How will a cloned baby be assigned a spirit? What will be recorded for a clone’s genealogy? Would God really allow cloning? 

But first, did it really happen? Rorvik describes how he was contacted by a multimillionaire bachelor (called “Max” to protect his identity) who wanted himself cloned. Rorvik purports to have found a willing and able scientist (“Darwin”) who secretly organizes a research team in an isolated hospital in a unidentified far-away land, and succeeds in replacing the genetic material from a human egg with a complete set of Max’s genes. Then he implants the now fertile egg in the womb of a surrogate mother (“Sparrow”) who subsequently delivers a healthy boy—the son and identical twin of Max. Max and Sparrow fall in love, and the new “family” presumably lives happily ever after.

The story strains at credibility. I question that a scientist of the purported ability of “Darwin” would give up a normal research career, even risk finding future employment, simply for money. The possibility of being the first to clone a human, or the first to clone any mammal for that matter, would be an allurement to many scientists, if—and this is one of the snags in Rorvik’s story—if the results could be published openly in a reputable scientific journal. Being recognized by peers, being known as the “first,” being honored for advancing the frontiers of science—these are the major motives of scientists. Not money. 

I also question that a project of this magnitude could be accomplished, as Rorvik claims, in two short years. Two years—to set up the complete laboratory complex, to hire and train the scientists and technicians, to carry out the experiments, to develop the right techniques, and to find final success—is several years too few. Has Rorvik never heard of Murphy’s Law? 

I think that Rorvik wrote the book as a means to summarize his career as a science writer in human reproduction, or to fulfill a desire to become involved in, and not just report on, a major scientific happening, or even to fulfill an ambition to write a novel. Or maybe he wrote it, as he admits in the afterword, to test the public conscience regarding human cloning.

Whatever his intentions, Rorvik produces what seems like an odd hybrid between a masters thesis in philosophy (complete with footnotes and bibliography) and a cheap science fiction novel. He presents a fairly complete discussion of the pros and cons of human cloning, test-tube fertilization and genetic engineering, but does so in an unorganized stream-of-consciousness style. Especially annoying are his frequent pseudoconversations (“I said that I felt that . . . And he said that he felt … . Then I said that … . Then he said that . . . .”) Evidently Rorvik shuns conversational quotations to avoid the appearance of a novel, and presumably shuns direct presentation of the issues in essay form to avoid the appearance of a technical review. The main failure is the attempt to combine serious philosophy with fictitious narrative, without complete sincerity in either. As a result the characters are stereotyped, the descriptions shallow, and the events predictable. The book is simply weak fiction.

But whether or not a human actually has been cloned, as described by Rorvik, is beside the point. Molecular biology is developing at such a pace that human cloning will soon be with us, if it is not here already. I see no way of avoiding it (and no, I don’t think God will prohibit it). Rorvik succeeds in warning us of this eventuality and of some of the ethical questions involved. We should seek individually and collectively to answer some of these questions before human cloning becomes another “achievement” of technology for which we are morally and emotionally unprepared. 

In His Image: The Cloning of a Man by David M. Rorvik, Lippincott, New York, 1978, 239pp., references, bibliography, index, $8.95. Paperback: Pocket Books, New York, $2.50.