Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com
Monday, Nov. 26, 2001

Politicians called for quick government action to control reproductive technology, while campaigners deplored the feared ramifications of the "breakthrough."

In its announcement Sunday, the Worcester, Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) stressed that the aim of its research is not to create a human being, but rather to use the embryo as a source for stem cells.

"Our intention is not to create cloned human beings but rather to make lifesaving therapies for a wide range of human disease conditions," ACT vice-president Dr. Robert Lanza said in a statement published in Scientific American magazine.

Pro-lifers argue that there are ethical and moral reasons to oppose both the latter, which proponents call "therapeutic" cloning, and the former, known as "reproductive" cloning. Some choose instead to call cloning for stem cell purposes "destructive," on the grounds the embryo is destroyed in the process.

CEO Michael West said the "entities" the company was creating were "only cellular life ... not human life." What the researchers were dealing with was "a cluster of cells."

The researchers want eventually to harvest stem cells from the early-stage cloned embryos, in the hope these may be encouraged to develop into various types of tissue to help treat a range of diseases.

For months the race has been on to announce the first cloned human embryo. Despite widespread international revulsion, some groups want to clone humans for live birth, while others claim only to be searching for better ways to cure human ills.

ACT also announced a second, significant research development: they had managed to coax unfertilized female eggs into developing into embryos without the introduction of sperm - a process of asexual reproduction called parthenogenesis. Creating embryos from unfertilized eggs could eliminate one step in the cloning process.

As Sunday's news spread around the world, it sparked debate as far away as New Zealand.

A lawmaker in the governing Labor Party said the announcement made it clear it was more urgent to pass legislation controlling research of human embryos than to pursue restrictions on genetically-modified plant experiments - currently a major national issue.

Dianne Yates, four years ago, introduced legislation aimed at controlling human reproductive technology, but it remains before a parliamentary committee.

Yates said Monday it was now clear the government needed to enact the law as soon as possible. Unregulated environment

Peter Dunne, the leader of the smaller, centrist party United Future, joined the fray, demanding that the government make its position on cloning clear.

"The ethical and professional issues surrounding this issue cannot be avoided or delayed any longer," he said Monday.

"The United States moves will put human cloning on the agenda of virtually every nation, and it is vital that proper and considered responses be developed. Governments cannot afford to duck for cover any longer."

Dunne voiced the fear that widespread cloning would begin before governments put restrictive policies in place.

New Zealand has a highly unregulated environment for human reproductive technology, with researchers in the field practicing voluntary self-regulation. Campaigners have long warned that scientists could carry out cloning experiments without sanction.

Earlier this year the environmental Green Party said it was concerned that some professionals in the human reproductive field were opposed to regulations being brought in, apparently "preferring to continue to work in an essentially unregulated environment in which the community has very little, if any, say over issues that have profound ethical issues for society."

A group campaigning against genetically-engineered (GE) organisms raised another point Monday, citing ACT's argument that the company was creating "only cellular life ... not human life."

"What are the criteria to be used in any decision as to when that cellular life becomes human?" asked Susie Lees of GE-Free New Zealand.

Lees pointed out that under current New Zealand rulings, cloned animals are not considered "alive" for statistical purposes until halfway through gestation.

"If these criteria were applied to humans it would mean that babies would be downgraded to 'cellular life' until 20 weeks before becoming defined as human and counted in the statistics," she argued.

"There is an urgent need to legislate on these issues or there is a terrible risk of controversial experiments being legitimized on human fetuses," Lees added. 'Destroying an embryo never therapeutic'

Australian pro-lifers are insistent that there should be no distinction between "therapeutic" and "reproductive" cloning when it comes to ethical considerations.

Australian religious leaders recently wrote an open letter to the government, in which they argued that "to produce an embryo is always 'reproductive'; to destroy an embryo is never 'therapeutic'."

" 'Therapeutic' cloning is a misnomer," according to the group Right to Life in the state of Queensland. "This type of experimentation, where the subject (in this case the embryo) may be harmed or destroyed has always been called 'non therapeutic' experimentation."

Sunday's news came less than a week after the Vatican urged the U.N. to ban human cloning for any purpose whatsoever.

Archbishop Renato Martino, the Holy See's permanent observer at the United Nations, told a U.N. committee that the Vatican was not only opposed to live-birth cloning, but also "the production of human embryos as suppliers of specialized stem cells, embryos used in the treatment of certain illnesses and then destroyed."

This, he continued, was "an even more serious offense against human dignity and the right to life, since it involves human beings - embryos - who are created in order to be destroyed."

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