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PRESS RELEASE - 24 September 2002 - Immediate release
Kirk calls on United Nations to ban Reproductive Cloning
Dr Donald Bruce, Society Religion & Technology Project, Church of Scotland
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
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Dr Donald Bruce, Director of the Society Religion and Technology Project of the Church of Scotland will today address United Nations delegates in New York to support a global ban on human reproductive cloning on the eve of a crucial UN committee vote this week. The UN committee responsible for technology will debate a joint proposal by the German and French Governments for a UN treaty which would make any attempt to clone babies illegal worldwide.
Dr Bruce says "The Church of Scotland was probably the first organisation to call formally for a world wide ban at its General Assembly in May 1997, three months after Dolly was cloned. We are delighted that the UN seems likely to accept the idea at last. Technology knows few frontiers, so it is vitally important the world community puts down markers about those technologies it does and does not find acceptable. Cloning is a clear case for a ban, to restrain maverick scientists, publicity seekers and the unscrupulous - who would capitalise on the vulnerability of childless couples and potential egg donors, to promote a technology that is both unsafe and unethical."
The UK is believed to support the ban, which is in line with the law passed at Westminster in December 2001. The proposal is a simple one, on which the vast majority agree. The ban would not include the more contentious issue of cloning embryos for research into cell replacement (legal in the UK). This is seen as too politically divisive to gain a large majority. The USA may vote against the simple ban, ostensibly because it wants to see these wider applications banned also.
Dr Bruce will also reflect views from the wider European church community, expressed by the bioethics working group of the Conference of European Churches. The basis is threefold. Firstly, to clone a human being is wrong in principle. Instead of having a unique and randomly created genetic make-up, a clone would have borrowed genetics, taken from an existing person. This differs from identical twinning, where an embryo of a unique and unknown genetic type spontaneously divides. For the first time a person would also come into the world having had their complete genetic make-up pre-determined by someone else. This is an unacceptable power, though this does not mean an identical person. The other aspects we call "environmental" factors will be different. We can reject our upbringing, education and social influences, but we cannot change our genes.
Equally important, it would be unthinkable in terms of medical and psychological risk. Serious welfare problems are regularly encountered when most animal species are cloned. For this reason the Farm Animal Welfare Council of the UK Ministry of Agriculture called for a moratorium in 1998 on commercial uses of animal cloning. It would be criminally irresponsible to attempt a technique on humans which is known frequently to cause deformities, large foetuses and premature deaths in animals. However much progress was made in animal cloning, there is no way one could know enough to risk any first attempts on humans. Having dozens of dead or deformed cloned babies could never justify a few that might succeed. And no one knows the long-term effects on vital organs and ageing. Cloned mouse studies indicate serious problems. Psychologically, no one knows the effects to the individual and the family of creating the twin of one of the parents, a generation removed. The precautionary principle should be applied, and a global ban adopted.
The Church of Scotland Society Religion and Technology Project has been in the forefront of ethical debate on cloning since 1996, and is in ethical dialogue with the Roslin scientists.
This page was created 24 September 2002
