It has already been one week since the team of British scientists from Newcastle University announced that they had successfully cloned the country's first human embryo. The fear over the decline of ethical values has been raised as human cloning becomes more prevalent across the world. Apart from pro-life groups, Protestants and evangelicals in the UK have been compelled to stand up and call for more respect for human life in the basis of Christian teaching.
The leading Christian social action charity CARE has been among the very first to speak out about its concerns. CARE said this latest research showed a "complete disregard for the sanctity of human life and ignored a UN ban on all forms of human cloning passed earlier this year."
CARE has years of experience in lobbying against human cloning. It has Special NGO Status with the UN and is the only UK NGO to have lobbied the 6th Committee in New York since it began discussing the original Franco-German "partial-ban" human cloning convention in 2001.
CARE pointed out that Britain is in fact just one of a handful of countries to permit the cloning of human embryos for research, especially after the US-sponsored non-binding resolution "to prohibit all forms of human cloning in as much as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life" was passed by the UN on 8th March.
The biomedical gurus in Newcastle were granted a licence to perform therapeutic cloning with human embryos by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) in August 2004. The licence issued was first of its kind in Europe and has outraged pro-lifers. Many countries, such as France and Germany, and throughout Europe have introduced bans or severe restrictions on this kind of research.
Acknowledging that the cloned embryonic stem cells will pave the way for treating diseases such as Parkinson's disease and diabetes, Dr Don Horrocks, Head of Public Affairs at the Evangelical Alliance UK (EAUK), commented, "Creating and destroying human life for a potential, but as yet unproven and risky future therapeutic benefits remains profoundly unethical, representing as it does the trading-off of one human life against another."
