The Island (Therapeutic Cloning)

Movie Spoiler!

Moral liberals and "we should do it just to prove that we can" scientists really need to read and watch more science fiction. Science fiction has the power to reveal the logical consequences of our moral choices in a stark and disturbing way. As a genre it dares to ask the question, "What if," and then to explore the good and the evil that could come from certain choices that we make.



I just watched the movie The Island. In this movie, therapeutic cloning has become standard practice, though only available for the rich. Clones are created as fully grown human beings, but their minds are kept docile through a series of genetic alterations and brainwashing techniques. They are mentally kept in an almost childlike state, until an "error" enables some of them to start asking questions about their fabricated existence. The hope and dream of these clones in their fabricated world is to win the lottery that will allow them to retire to "The Island," supposedly the last place on earth not contaminated by a rampant and deadly virus. However, instead of going to The Island, the clones are taken to the operating room where their body parts are harvested and transplanted into their "sponsors."



When two of the clones discover the truth and escape, a high-tech manhunt ensues. The remaining clones with the same defect as the two escaped clones are scheduled for termination. One scene of the termination being carried out is very much like an abortion - "unborn" clones are cut out of their artificial wombs and left to die on the floor. Clones that have been born but have not finished their mental programming are killed by lethal injection, very much like euthanasia or capital punishment. The clones who had been living their lives inside the institution all "win the lottery" and are ushered into an incinerator - very reminiscent of death camps. The tone of the movie obviously invokes the horror of each act; the killing of each human being is murder no matter what stage of development. The clones are called products and they are "owned" by those who paid for their creation (basically their older twin siblings). The head of the company even remarks to the protagonist, "I brought you into this world. I can take you out." The cliché never fit so well.



In the end, the hit man who was hired to seek and destroy the two escaped clones comes to realize that the clones are really human beings whose human rights and dignity have been taken away by nothing more than a trick of language.



The company keeps a safe public image by advertising their process as the creation of a subhuman biological entity that is kept in a vegetative state. By the end of the movie, it is pretty obvious that even if their spin had been true, creating human life and destroying it for the scavenging of body parts would still be evil.



Talk of therapeutic cloning has gone down in the media. However, the specter is still out there. What horrors will we visit on our fellow human beings just because we think we have usurped the power to create them? Perhaps it's not too late for the necessary moral dialogue to take place to keep us from such evil. Perhaps science fiction has an important role to play in this dialogue.



The Island is a good movie as a whole, but it does contain violent scenes and the wrong attitude about sex (though no actual nudity). Rated PG-13, but I would recommend it only for older teens and adults. The USCCB also rates it A-III (adults) for action violence, scattered profanity, rough and crude language, mild sexual encounter and innuendo, an irreligious comment, a birth scene and nonexplicit urination scenes.