Cloning condemned by European Union

By Simon Caldwell BerrAEN could fall dramatially out of line with Europe if it legalised human cloning, it has been claimed.
Dr Peter Liese, a German MEP and chairman of the European Parliament's Christian Democrat group on bioethics, severely criticised the drift toward human cloning in Britain, warning of a "horror scenario" without the scientific, economic and medical advantages predicted.
Speaking in the House of Lords in advance of the Government's summer decision on the legalisation of "spare part" or "therapeutic" cloning, he said: "I have been invited to present to you the position of the European Parliament regarding the cloning of human beings.
"To make it clear: the European Parliament unambiguously rejects the cloning of human beings. We do not accept the distinction between 'reproductive' and therapeutic cloning which is discussed very often.We do not think that it is acceptable to produce human embryos by cloning and that the problem only begins with the implantation of these cloned embryos in the uterus. In the last few years, these positions have repeatedly been clarified in a very precise manner."
Dr Liese, a medical doctor who worked for the Institute for Human Genetics of Bonn University, warned that any relaxation in laws prohibiting the practice would be like "the bursting of a dam".
He said: "There would be immediate attempts to go further. Already researchers think about growing embryos in artificial uteri to produce organs. There are other ideas to suppress the development of the brain, by neurotoxical substances, to raise human beings without brains, but with organs that could be used. You certainly agree that this is a horror scenario." He dismissed wealth creation as among the benefits of cloning, saying that while Germany had the strictest bioethical laws in Europe, biotech firms were still relocating there, even from Britain. "This has nothing to do with the question of how to deal with human embryos, but a lot with the promotion of enterprises and regulations in other areas," he said.
The meeting also produced for the first time in public a letter from Cardinal Thomas Winning. the Archbishop of Glasgow, to Professor Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, whose committee is soon to report to the Government on the issue of cloning.
The Cardinal, chairman of the Catholic Bishops' (of Great Britain and Ireland) Joint Committee on Bioethical Issues, condemned all cloning and attacked "the way commercial interests of biotechnology companies appear to be influencing government deliberations".
He criticised the use of euphemisms such as "therapeutic" and insisted that embryos had the same rights to life as other children. To assert otherwise, he said, was to divide people into "morally offensive" categories of "human" and "sub-human".
He said: "It is a gross violation of rights to breed embryos for the sole purpose of taking their cells, thus ending their lives. Far from being morally superior to "reproductive" cloning, where the aim is to bring the clone to birth, spare-part cloning is an even greater aberration.
"The clone embryo would be just another stage in the 'customised' production of cells for transplantation to an older human being ... respect for innocent human life, at every stage, is not negotiable."
The Cardinal added that spare part cloning was unnecessary since viable options already existed. Vital stem cells, which scientist seek to grow into new tissue, could be not only be taken from foetuses, but also from adults, umbilical cords, miscarriages and even from animals.
The event was organised by Catholic peer Lord Alton of Liverpool who attacked the "biased and unrepresentative" cloning advisory bodies to the Government. He said: "Cloning is bad science, it's had ethics and it has been badly served by a phoney consultation process."