Pro-lifers Warn Cloning is a Global Crisis amid UK & Korea Breakthroughs

The success of therapeutic cloning of human embryos in UK and Korea has hit the headlines on Friday's newspapers worldwide. Behind the astonishing breakthrough in cloning technology that may lead to new treatments for diseases such as Parkinson's disease and diabetes, a deep worry has been raised among pro-lifers who say that cloning could potentially become a global crisis leading to the slippery slope over bioethics.

In response to the South Korean cloning team who claimed to have produced about a dozen new embryonic stem cell lines from cloned human embryos, the UK’s leading pro-life group, LIFE warned that this news "takes us a step closer to full reproductive cloning".

"This news from South Korea makes reproductive cloning a clear and present global danger. If, as they claim, these South Korean scientists can reliably produce cloned embryos healthy enough to survive to the blastocyst stage for cell harvesting, we can assume that they can reliably produce embryos healthy enough to try implanting them in women. This Frankenstein science should be banned in every civilised country."

In fact, the US President George W. Bush has urged UN member states to adopt legislation "to prohibit all forms of human cloning in as much as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life" since September 2004.

Even though a non-binding resolution was finally passed by the UN on 8th March to prohibit human cloning, therapeutic cloning has still not been clearly addressed. Therefore, countries who are already moving forwards in their stem cell research such as Britain, South Korea, and the Netherlands have promised to continue pushing ahead with therapeutic cloning even after the resolution.

LIFE deplored the British scientists upon the announcement that the first cloned human embryos were "born" in the Centre for Life in Newcastle yesterday. It even described it as a "shame" for Britain.

The press release read, "Cloning has been banned by many civilised countries such as the USA, Germany and Italy and earlier this year the United Nations approved a declaration urging all member states to outlaw all forms of cloning. We have crossed a moral Rubicon. We are witnessing a new and lamentable form of manipulation and trivialisation of human life."

While LIFE agreed that doctors are obligated to find alternative treatments for curing terrible diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, it said, "but this end does not justify the means. Human beings should not be manufactured to supply ‘spare parts’ for others."

The Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) in the UK echoed the hidden danger as well, "Therapeutic cloning will also lead inevitably to reproductive cloning. Once cloned embryos exist, theoretically all that is needed to produce human clones would be to implant them in a womb - a technique that is simple to perform and impossible to police."

Adding to the worry about the slippery slope over bioethics, CMF urged the governments and the media to "paint a more balanced picture of the significance of these developments."

Peter Saunders, General Secretary of CMF, said, "The day is now closer when scientists will attempt to implant embryonic stem cells into human patients. But many major safety, logistic and ethical issues have yet to be addressed."

Saunders, from a professional angle, criticised the misconception that "cloned embryos are a panacea for treating degenerative diseases". He attributed this to the "government’s failure and unwillingness to highlight the dangers and to rectify misconceptions about the properties of the more ethical alternative of adult stem cells".

Saunders pointed out that rather than embryonic stem cells that are considered as a great hope for alternative medical treatment, adult stem cells in fact serve more advantages. "Adult stem cells are versatile, require limited, if any, manipulation, and are readily available from a number of sources. The cost of their clinical application will be far less and there are no ethical concerns in their use - making them acceptable to virtually all patients and healthcare providers."

This argument is also supported by LIFE who said, "Adult stem cell research, not cloning, represents the ethical and scientific way forward."

Saunders criticised the media that "selective interpretation and presentation of scientific data is both irresponsible and dangerous because it raises false hopes in vulnerable people."

He suggested, "Rather than pursuing unethical and unproven research into embryos, the government should put taxpayers’ money into ethical research that will lead to us getting the most affordable cures for patients, more quickly."