Tony Perkins' Washington Update
February 9, 2005

Experimental Human Beings

Yesterday the government of the United Kingdom granted a license for cloning human embryos to Ian Wilmut, cloner of Dolly the sheep. Supposedly, Dr. Wilmut wants to use somatic cell nuclear transfer (the procedure used to create Dolly) to make clones of patients who have motor-neuron diseases such as ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) to study possible causes of disease development. Whether this will lead to any useful information is highly questionable. As Dr. Wilmut himself has said previously, clones and their embryonic stem cells have defects that cause various abnormalities in their cells and tissues. He has also admitted that because of these defects, including an association with tumor formation, there are significant concerns for use of such embryonic stem cell therapies for patients.

While the U.K. is at least honest (compared to many proponents in the U.S.) in saying that cloning does indeed produce a human embryo, it has taken the view that it is morally permissible to create some human beings for experiments--experiments in which the young human life is destroyed. Society should not create a caste system of lesser humans to be used for scientific sacrifice. If helping patients is the true aim, adult stem cells continue to show the real promise. It should be noted that President Bush has restated his commitment to creating a culture of life and that he will not bow to pressure to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Tony Perkins' Washington Update
Family Research Council

©Copyright 2005, Tony Perkins' Washington Update, February 9, 2005, Family Research Council.

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