Godsend

Nick Hamm’s Godsend (Nick Hamm, 2004) was released in 2004, not long after the completion of the Human Genome Project, the death of Dolly, or even the Raelian’s announcement of the first cloned human baby.  The film was released with high hopes, blending together both the science fiction and thriller genres, yet it preformed poorly at the box-office; audiences preferred and expected a film depicting a “science experiment gone wrong,” but what they got was a ghost story. [1]   Despite all of this, the film stands as a case study of human cloning and its repercussions.  The film highlights the lives of Paul and Jessie Duncan, and their son Adam; after Adam is killed at the age of eight in an automobile accident, his parents must decide whether or not to have him cloned.

            Dr. Richard Wells provides them with this option in the beginning of the film, enabling Adam’s parents to “keep a living connection with [their] dead child.” [2]   Yet being given this option is the source of great discourse between Adam’s parents, and they agree to clone Adam only after Jessie coerces Paul to do so.  They must move across the country, cut off all familial ties, get new jobs, and go through another pregnancy with a cloned Adam before their lives settle back to normal.

Yet even after Adam’s parents decide to have him cloned, this normality turns to abnormality as a result of their missing their original son.  Soon after the new Adam is born, his father expresses that he “wishes he had time to miss [the real] Adam;” likewise, his mother, an avid photographer, keeps a lock box full of old photographs of the original Adam.  As Francis Fukuyama explains: “cloning is a highly unnatural form of reproduction that will establish equally unnatural relationships between parents and children.” [3]   It is this strain on the new familial bonds that Dr. Wells attributes to Adam’s strange recently formed behavior, which very much unlike his old (original) self.

At one point after the cloned Adam begins acting like his old self, Paul visits Wells in a fit of anger, and expresses that he wants his son to be fixed, alluding to his desire to erase everything he has done thus far with his son.  A surprised Wells questions Paul, “Do you think you can just open up Pandora’s box, and then close it again when you see fit?”  This question is not simply posed to the upset Paul; it is a question for all of society to ponder.  Moreover, as ­­­­Glenn McGee and Arthur Caplan argue, “What can be known [about cloning] is that [it] cannot be reversed.” [4]

The scenario explored in the film is not so radical in today’s world, in light of technology and the speed at which it is constantly improving; cloned babies are right on our doorstep (the Raelians), and as the public, we already, in a sense, accept this fact.  Furthering this idea of acceptance is the promotional stunt used for the release of the film, borrowed from Gattaca.  Godsend’s production company Lions Gate Films set up “two official websites: one conventional site with movie information, and one site that appeared to be a promotional tool for the (fictional) cloning institute depicted in the movie.” [5]   Providing an email address and phone number, the fake institute was actually called or emailed by several parents to “inquire about having their children genetically reconstituted.” [6]   In light of this, the studio had to explain in the news that the institute was simply a film tie-in and not a real laboratory.  This gullibility displayed on part of the public is not an example of a film studio outsmarting society through the use of an advertising ploy; rather, it is an example of society believing that certain advertised technology is truly and publicly available, and being proven wrong.

But those certain parents’ desires to have their children genetically reconstituted, bring to light another aspect of cloning: the difference between cloning and resurrection.  Whereas cloning “creates a new individual in the same kind of body; resurrection restores the original individual in a different kind of body.” [7]   What Paul and Jessie are doing is cloning their dead son Adam – bringing him back in the same body, while accepting that he might behave differently than beforehand.

  Adam does in fact behave differently then his original copy; he constantly experiences night terrors in which he acts increasingly disturbing, as compared to his original who was a nice, happy child.  This is because Dr. Wells, in secrecy, spliced Adam’s cloned cells with a little of his own dead son’s DNA.  The Doctor, then, in effect, manages to resurrect his dead son Zachary through the body of Adam – for Adam’s clone acts like Zachary does while he experiences night terrors.  This terrifying situation reveals a new question: can technology be controlled? [8]   But it also unearths yet another: who is best suited to ensure the safety of children born through new reproductive technologies, and how ought they to make decisions? [9]  

Before the answer is addressed, this question brings to light huge issues surrounding the implementation of reproductive technologies that must be examined; J. Craig Venter, head of the biotechnology firm Celera, planned to provide a sequence of the human DNA faster than the government run Human Genome Project. [10] To do so, used his own DNA.  The main question here is: is this ethical?  Although he had good intentions, as does Dr. Wells, how will such unknowns pan out?  Can Venter, and likewise Dr. Wells, pose such a question, if their wellbeing, and even the wellbeing of others, is to be challenged?  With this in mind, the previous questions are now shown in a new light; who can ensure the safety of such children?

            The answer here is: no one.  The acclaimed scientist with an idealistic mind broke the moral code of cloning by “objectifying and dehumanizing the cloned child.” [11]   The parents, similarly, decided to clone their child despite initial feelings of doubt; they failed to realize that regardless of their “irreversible yearning to reverse the death…cloning will [not] bring [their] child back.” [12]   The fact of the matter is that cloning is “an act of taking the future into our own hands,” [13] and that “it is morally wrong to exploit and destroy developing human life, even for good reasons, and that it is unwise to open the door to the many undesirable consequences that are likely to result from this research.” [14]