FAITH AND SCIENCE

Therapeutic cloning an affront to human dignity, Australian bishops say

10/12/2006
Catholic Online

CANBERRA, Australia (Catholic Online) – Therapeutic cloning stands as an affront to basic human values and leads society to creating a new expendable class human beings that diminishes the dignity of all people, said the Australian bishops.

In an Oct. 11 statement issued as the federal parliament considers proposals to lift the ban on human cloning, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said that the legislative measures, if passed, will “create a new contempt for life” by allowing “human embryos to be deliberately created and then destroyed for scientific research.”

Therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves the injecting of adult genetic material into a human egg which has had its nucleus removed. Stem cells are then harvested from the resulting human embryo for use in research.

While those in favor claim it will lead to cures for currently uncurable diseases, those opposed, including the Australian bishops, say it involves the destruction of human life.

“To create a human embryo with the express purpose of destroying it for research is to enter into a dangerous and perverse form of human experimentation,” the Australian bishops said.

The Catholic Church is not opposed to stem cell research, the bishops said. “On the contrary, we are strong supporters of research based on adult stem cells, as well as those which are derived from umbilical cord blood.”

The bishops noted that the nation’s parliament passed legislation in 2002, which they opposed, allowing embryonic stem cell lines to be extracted from human embryos remaining from the in vitro fertilization process. At that time, the bishops added, the parliament “rejected human embryo cloning.”

Yet, they said that new legislation, expected to be voted upon next month, intends “to take us from using ‘spare’ human embryos, created for reproduction, to creating a new class of human embryos, never to be used for reproduction, but only for research.”

This despite the fact that there have been no significant scientific developments in the past four years, the bishops added.

The new bills “create a new contempt for life,” the bishops said, by “creating embryos purely for the purpose of destruction, further dehumanizing the human embryos (and) introducing new categories of human embryos, including clones and embryos with mixed DNA.”

Such science, the Australian bishops said, “compounds the promotion of curiosity over ethics.”

Using terms like “therapeutic cloning” is misleading, they said, as no such therapies have been borne from the process.

The human embryo, the bishops stressed, “has intrinsic human dignity and should be afforded the most basic of human rights – the right to live, to grow, to prosper.”

They stated that they were not making “a religious argument,” founded on faith beliefs. “We do not argue against destructive experimentation on embryos simply because we are Catholic, but because of basic human values,” the bishops said. “As a society we cannot seek to alleviate the suffering of some people by creating and then killing human life.”

While all people hope that treatments can be found for serious diseases or conditions, the bishops said that “allowing scientists open slather on human embryos for research is not the way forward.”