Human cloning closer than you think -- activist

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

Would that present a breakthrough for treating infertility and provide parents a genetic duplicate of a dead child? Or would it be ethically repugnant and unacceptably risky?

The United Nations voted Nov. 6 to put off any decision on banning human cloning for two years.

Member nations, including Canada, are divided over how far such an agreement should go. Some say it should only ban cloning to make babies. Others also want to outlaw so-called "therapeutic cloning," which produces and then destroys week-old embryos to harvest stem cells.

Scientists hope to use stem cells for treating such illnesses as diabetes and Parkinson's disease. Most scientists who deal with cloning oppose using it to make human babies, mainly because they think it is unsafe.

But Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops, says human cloning is closer than people may think.

"We have people out there who want to make human life in order to destroy it, market it, license it and sell it," he said. "That's a bad thing and we need to raise our voices against it."

"Our society, through these technologies, has turned away from the vision of a child as a precious gift from God." - Richard Doerflinger

Speaking at the National Pro-Life Conference at Fantasyland Hotel Nov. 7, Doerflinger described cloning as the pro-life issue of the 21st century.

This whole agenda of manipulating life in a laboratory began with new technologies for substituting the human reproduction, Doerflinger said.

"Our society, through these technologies, has turned away from the vision of a child as a precious gift from God."

He said once the researchers got used to manufacturing life in a lab, they have taken more and more steps toward seeing the result of the process as an object they can patent, license, market and sell.

"Now we have the completely dehumanized procedure known as cloning where an embryo doesn't even have a mother and a father in the ordinary sense anymore," he lamented.

"It's a complete asexual reproduction, completely manufactured to preset specifications by a scientist in the laboratory. This has taken away (the power of procreating) from the husband and wife and given it to a technician in a laboratory."

Doerflinger said this goes against Church principles, which hold that life is sacred and should be revered. "The scientists have turned this around and say we can so dehumanize the procreation (process) that the product doesn't have to be seen as human anymore."

Do clones have souls? "Yes, they do," Doerflinger said in answer to a question. "When you make them, no matter how strangely you make them, they are fellow members of the human species and have souls."

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