Omnes Sancti et Sanctæ Coreæ, orate pro nobis.

Now Blogging Afresh at Ad Orientem 西儒 - The Western Confucian



Saturday, May 21, 2005

"Frankenstein Science"
A spokesperson for LIFE:
    This news from South Korea makes reproductive cloning a clear and present global danger. If, as they claim, these South Korean scientists can reliably produce cloned embryos healthy enough to survive to the blastocyst stage for cell harvesting, we can assume that they can reliably produce embryos healthy enough to try implanting them in women. This Frankenstein science should be banned in every civilized country.

    No-one should be misled by the South Korean team's claim that they have refined the cloning process so that it only involves taking a dozen or so eggs from each woman involved in the research project. These figures, if they are true, only make the exploitation of some women more likely. Cloning involves exposing women to dangerous fertility drugs in order to collect sufficient eggs to use in the cloning process. It is unsafe and inefficient.

    These scientists may be acting out of the noblest of motives, the treatment and cure of debilitating diseases, but every week news breaks of astonishing progress in the treatment of debilitating diseases using adult stem cells. Being taken from the patient's body, these cells are compatible with the patient's own tissue and avoid the ethical problems associated with cloning. Adult stem cell research, not cloning, represents the ethical and scientific way forward.
    [quoted from Korean cloning experiment raises ethical concerns]
I would add that even if the cloning is not done for reproductive purposes, it is gravely evil, as it involves the creation of an embryo (with a soul, we can presume) only to be destroyed.