[Question:]{.underline} Are human-animal hybrids a possibility?
[Answer:]{.underline} Materialism pushes modern scientists to “prove“ that man has no immortal soul. The most effective way to do this would be to establish that the only difference between man and the animals is a genetic one, by creating a hybrid which is part man and part animal. www.LifeSiteNews.com published an article on July 25, 2011 quoting the Daily Mail, that 155 “admixed“ embryos, containing both human and animal genetic material had been created by scientists harvesting genetic material from embryos in the UK, and that this had been done secretly, but legally with licenses, under the 2008 Human Fertilisation Embryology Act. This secret research was revealed by a report prepared by a committee of scientists, and tabled in the British Parliament. These embryos included such things as attempts to give monkeys human attributes, by injecting human stem cells into their brains.
Would it really be possible, then, to create a living being which is partly human and partly animal, and if so are they really animal or human?
A similar question arose over the question of test tube babies, in which the human egg is artificially fertilized in the laboratory and then implanted in the mother, thus bypassing the sacred marriage act, ordained by God to be the means by which the matter for new life is prepared. At the time, some said that such individuals could not have souls, since this process of fertilization was so perverse. The evidence is for all to see, since this is now common place. This incredibly immoral and revolutionary method of in vitro fertilization, in which man plays God, clearly produces human beings who have a soul. God infuses the soul when the scientist disposes the matter by fertilizing the ovum. The Church has repeatedly condemned this process, but the individuals thus produced are fully human beings and have a soul, and ought to be baptized and raised as Catholics.
Then came cloning, in which an attempt is made to reproduce a new individual with the exact same genetic make up as the one from which it is cloned. This has succeeded with animals, but is fraught with multiple technical problems, so that the animals thus created suffer from many genetic defects. To the best of my knowledge this has not been done for a human being, even illegally and surreptitiously. However, if it were done, this individual would certainly have a soul and be a true human being, with a soul, for he would have all the genetic material and the organization of a human being, even if he had serious genetic defects. The soul, principle of life, is infused at such time as the material elements are given the organization needed to support human life, that is when the genetic material is incorporated into the cell to make one living being.
However, the same does not apply for hybrids. If a human-animal hybrid embryo could be grown to term, it would have to be either one or the other. Either it would be principally an animal, with some human characteristics, and hence no soul, or it would be principally human, with some animal characteristics, and hence would have a soul. A creature that would be equally both, half and half, would not only be physiologically impossible, but also metaphysically so. The reason for this is that the principle of life, the soul, has to be either the immortal soul of the human who has the spiritual faculties of intellect and will, or in the case of an animal, it has to be the immaterial principle of a being that has no spiritual faculties, but only those that depend upon bodily existence, which includes the passions and feelings, but not free will.
One frightening possibility is genetic manipulation to produce an animal that can act and react in some ways like a man. Such an animal might even look like a man, but he would have no intellect, no free will, no judgment, but would act purely and simply out of instinct or emotion, which is in either case a purely physical response. The other, and more frightening possibility, is to produce a man who is so defective and animalistic in his reactions that he is incapable of using free will. He would be like those with serious neurological or genetic diseases who never attain the use of reason, but who may receive baptism and be Catholic.
May God forbid that the foolhardy pride of man go to such extremes in his striving to be as God, denying that which is most precious about human nature, his spiritual faculties of intellect and will.
The above-mentioned article quotes Lord David Alton, who publicly opposed the creation of such hybrids as ethically unacceptable: “Of the 80 treatments and cures which have come about from stems cells, all have come from adult stem cells, not embryonic ones. On moral and ethic grounds this fails; and on scientific and medical ones too”. Our society will have a terrifying punishment if this abuse of innocent human beings, embryos, for destruction and genetic manipulation continues. It is a sin crying out for vengeance.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.