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5 April 2002 - Immediate release
Dr Donald Bruce, Society Religion & Technology Project, Church of Scotland
Contact tel. 0131-240 2250, Fax 0131-240 2239, srtp@srtp.org.uk http://www.srtp/org.uk
or Church of Scotland Press Office 0131- 240 2243
Claims reported in the "Gulf News" this week by the Italian scientist Dr Antinori to have a woman 8 weeks pregnant with a cloned baby may be just empty publicity. If it was true a responsibly scientist would announce such an event in the proper way.
His reported answers on the implications for humans of the dangers of animal cloning, if accurately reported, would imply a deeply disturbing lack of concern for the health of those he claims to be taking part in his programme. The problems encountered in almost all animal cloning are sufficient in themselves to make any attempt to do a cloning procedure in humans the height of irresponsibility. In 1998 the Farm Animal Welfare Council of the UK Ministry of Agriculture called for a moratorium on commercial uses of farm animal cloning, because of this. Recent reports show that cloning has failed so far in primates, revealing a "gallery of horrors" in the embryos. In a carefully controlled experiment cloned mice were found to die unusually early of liver failure and pneumonia. In such a context it would be criminally irresponsible to attempt a technique on vulnerable humans desperate to have children. There are better and far safer solutions to infertility than cloning.
The accumulating scientific evidence points to very serious uncertainties in cloning methods, sufficient for several programmes in animals to be abandoned. It would be highly dangerous to experiment on humans in this way. The probable outcome would be dead or deformed babies. The range of potential problems is so large and the basic science so little understood that there is no guarantee that ultrasound scans or other tests would pick up the problems. Cloned lambs may be put down if they are suffering too much; deformed cloned babies could not be. It is almost inconceivable to imagine a situation where scientists would have well placed confidence to achieve success at the first attempt in humans and almost every time thereafter. They could also be held liable if it all went wrong.
Risk aside, there is a widespread international view that to clone a human being is simply wrong. SRT Project has argued since 1997 that to clone is to exercise an unprecedented and unacceptable control over someone else's complete genetic makeup. It is quite different from the randomness of identical twinning, where an embryo of unique and so far unknown genetic type spontaneously divides. Cloning takes the genetic material of an existing person and uses it as the basis of a new person. Instead of having their own unique genetic make-up, they would have someone else's "hand-me-down" genes. This does not mean an identical person, of course. All the other aspects we call "environmental" factors will be different. But for the first time a person would come into the world who had had their genes preordained by someone else. We argue that this is intrinsically wrong. We can reject our upbringing, education and social influences, but we cannot change our genes. The Church of Scotland, along with many others, considers that cloning human beings should be outlawed worldwide.
Tel: 0131-240 2250, Fax 0131-240 2239
Email: srtp@srtp.org.uk http://www.srtp.org.uk
or Church of Scotland Press Office 0131- 240 2243
Dr Bruce is Director of the Society Religion and Technology Project of the Church of Scotland, assessing ethical issues in technology for Scotland's national church. He chaired an expert working group on the ethics of genetic engineering in animals and plants, which produced the acclaimed book "Engineering Genesis", which examined the ethics of both xenotransplantation and animal cloning.
