The cloning of human beings is now one of the most serious ethical issues facing us today.

The first successfully cloned mammal was born on 5 July 1996. Professor Ian Wilmut and his team at the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh, cultured 277 cloned sheep embryos for six days, then 29 embryos, which seemed to have developed normally, were implanted into surrogate ewes. 148 days later, Dolly was the only lamb to be born alive¹.

Since Dolly’s birth, research into cloning has moved on rapidly. Cell nuclear replacement², the technique used to create Dolly, can also be used on primates and human beings. In October 2001 scientists in the United States successfully cloned rhesus monkey embryos³. The following month, Advanced Cell Technology of Massachusetts claimed to have cloned the first human embryo to use for stem cell research⁴. Some doctors⁵ plan to transfer cloned humans into women’s wombs to produce cloned human babies. This is known as reproductive cloning, although all human cloning is reproductive because a new and individual human being is produced in every case.

So-called therapeutic cloning involves the creation of cloned human embryos by the same technique used to clone Dolly the sheep. The clones are then used for stem cell research. The stem cells of the cloned embryos are taken out in the laboratory which causes the embryos to die. Scientists claim that embryonic stem cells from clones are better than those from non-cloned embryos because body tissue or organs created by these stem cells would contain exactly the same DNA as the adult from whom the clones were made. This means that the adult would not reject the new cells put into his/her body⁶.

Cloned human embryos are individual human beings, just as much as embryos generated in any other way. If allowed to grow, cloned humans would be physically identical to the person from whom they were cloned but would possess a separate persona and identity, like identical twins. The late Cardinal Thomas Winning, archbishop of Glasgow and chairman of the British Catholic bishops’ joint committee on bioethical issues, described therapeutic cloning as "the ultimate misnomer, for it actually means killing"⁷. He condemned the fact that a cloned human person produced for this purpose "would be produced, and treated, as if it were a chemical ingredient"⁸.

The fact that therapeutic cloning involves creating and then destroying human embryos was brought home by Dr Harry Griffin of the Roslin Institute (which cloned Dolly the sheep) when he said, it "is clearly not therapeutic for the embryo"⁹. However, scientists try to deny the harm caused to the cloned embryo. Therapeutic cloning is often called "cell nuclear replacement" as if it is not really cloning at all. Promises of a ban on human cloning turn out to be only a ban on reproductive cloning¹⁰. Dr John Wyatt, a professor of neonatal paediatrics¹¹, said: "The redefinition of human embryos as mere biological material or ‘totipotent stem cells’ in order to allay public concerns smacks of semantic trickery rather than responsible debate"¹². In 2000, the European parliament warned that "an attempt is being made to use linguistic sleight of hand to erode the moral significance of human cloning"¹³.

On 24 June 1999, the British Government called for a freeze on human cloning and established the Expert Medical Group on Human Cloning (known as the Donaldson committee) under Professor Liam Donaldson, the government’s chief medical officer¹⁴. The committee’s report claimed that therapeutic cloning (which it called cell nuclear replacement) was not the same as reproductive cloning (the transfer of any cloned human embryo into the uterus of a woman).

On 16 August 2000, the department of health accepted the recommendations of the Donaldson committee’s report¹⁵. Votes in both houses of parliament then amended the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 and authorised research on cloned human embryos for the treatment of "serious disease"¹⁶. The United Kingdom was the first country to authorize therapeutic cloning¹⁷, which was condemned by religious and political figures at home and abroad¹⁸. The High Court ruled that the statutory instrument was invalid because the definition of "embryo" in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act does not include cloned embryos, but the Court of Appeal overturned this judgement on 18 January 2002.

The introduction of therapeutic cloning will almost certainly lead to reproductive cloning. On 30 August 2000, the Independent newspaper conducted a survey of 32 "eminent medical scientists", such as Lord Winston (the IVF pioneer) and Professor Richard Dawkins. A majority admitted that allowing therapeutic cloning would lead to the birth of cloned babies in the future. Later, Lord Winston revealed his support for reproductive cloning by saying: "I can’t see why people are feeling threatened by this. It seems to me there might be a use in people with total sterility... as long as research is conducted responsibly and ethically, this field of work will cease to be controversial."¹⁹

Lord Winston has acknowledged that the process of perfecting reproductive cloning would lead to hundreds of unsuccessful attempts. Professor Ian Wilmut, who cloned Dolly the sheep, warned that reproductive human cloning would result in many abortions and in children who lived for only a short time and/or whose development was irregular²⁰.

Experts in cloning point out that animal cloning has a very high failure rate and that the failure rate is likely to be even higher in human cloning. Reports suggest that only one in 10 cloned animals are considered suitably well formed to be implanted, and about half of those that survive till birth suffer development problems, referred to as large offspring syndrome. Dr Michael West, of Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts, said that only about one in 100 cloned human embryos would survive, and that those who did would have navels two or three times bigger than the normal size due to the oversized umbilical cords that develop during most pregnancies involving clones²¹.

Europe

The European Parliament has unambiguously rejected the cloning of human beings on several occasions²², calling for "each Member State to enact binding legislation prohibiting all research into any kind of human cloning within its territory and providing for criminal penalties for any breach"²³ and insisting "that there should be a universal and specific ban at the level of the United Nations on the cloning of human beings at all stages of formation and development"²⁴. Its resolutions reject any distinction between 'therapeutic' and 'reproductive' cloning²⁵, follow an agreed definition of the human embryo as a human being²⁶ and have received strong cross-party support. In response to the British Government's acceptance of the Donaldson report, it called upon the Government "to review its position on human embryo cloning" and "the United Kingdom Parliament to ... reject the proposal to permit research using embryos created by cell nuclear transfer"²⁷.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights, adopted by the Council of Europe under the Treaty of Nice 7 December 2000 prohibits all reproductive cloning of human beings. However, this does not include therapeutic cloning.

Some argue that the British biotechnology industry would lose out to European competition if research into human cloning were prohibited. However, Germany has the strongest rules in Europe for the protection of embryos in research, yet it has overtaken the United Kingdom in terms of the number of biotechnology firms locating there²⁸.

1 Roslin Institute: Briefing Notes on Dolly, 12 December 1997
2 Cell nuclear replacement involves the introduction of a nucleus from a specially prepared adult body cell into an unfertilised egg which has had its DNA removed. The egg is subjected to an electrical impulse which fuses the two components and begins the process of development. The Roslin Institute admits that little is known about how this happens, and in most cases it fails at the start.
3 The breakthrough by Professor Don Wolf of the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center was reported in The Sunday Times, 28 October 2001
4 Reported by BBC News online, 26 November, etc.
5 Such as Professor Severino Antinori, the Italian fertility specialist, who announced in March 2001 that he intended to produce a cloned human baby within two years.
6 Some experts have pointed out that this claim is not true. Dr David Prentice, professor in the department of life science at Indiana State University and an advisor to the US Congress on stem cell research, explained to participants in a bioethics seminar in the European parliament on 20 November 2001 that proponents of experimental cloning had overstated its potential because there was no guarantee that the use of stem cells extracted from clones would solve the problem of rejection in recipients. Cloned embryos created by cell nuclear transfer would inherit some of the genetic make-up of the egg donor in the mitochondria.
7"Be warned, Mr. Blair, cloning is killing", Sunday Telegraph, 20 August 2000
8 Letter to Professor Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, 22 October 1999
9 Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy conference, London, 14 November 2000
10 Emergency legislation rushed through the UK parliament in November 2001 banned only so-called reproductive cloning.
11 At the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London.
12 Quoted by Lord Alton; House of Lords Hansard, 22 January 2001, column 29
13 European Parliament, resolution on human cloning, 7 September 2000, Recital G
14 Lord Alton of Liverpool, a pro-life peer, criticised this and other similar bodies for the absence of people who upheld the sanctity of human life. He also criticised the lack of balance on such committees, citing the inclusion in some cases of members of the Eugenics Society. (Catholic Herald, 7 April 2000)
15 The statutory instrument was passed by the House of Commons on 19 December 2000 by 366 votes to 174, and by the House of Lords on 22 January 2001 by acclaim. A motion to postpone a definitive vote on the measure until after a select committee had reported on the issue was defeated in the House of Lords by 212 votes to 92.
16 The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Research Purposes) Regulations 2001, which came into force on 31 January 2001, added three grounds for research on human embryos to those which are authorised by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990: increasing knowledge about the development of embryos; increasing knowledge about serious disease; enabling any such knowledge to be applied in developing treatments for serious disease. The measure did not mention either cloning or cell nuclear replacement.
17 The statutory instrument may, however, be ultra vires because Section 1 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 defined an embryo as "a live human embryo where fertilisation is complete" or "an egg in the process of fertilisation". These definitions do not cover embryos created through cell nuclear replacement.
18 The European parliament passed a motion on 7 September 2000 calling on the British government to review its stance on human embryo cloning and noted that "an attempt is being made to use linguistic sleight of hand to erode the moral significance of human cloning". After the vote in the House of Commons, Edelgard Bulmahn, Germany’s science minister, commented: "We are united with all other European Union countries that the cloning of embryos steps over ethical and moral boundaries." After the vote in the House of Lords, Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, archbishop of Birmingham, said that the decision "cheapened human life" and constituted an "affront to human dignity".
19 The Independent, 26 October 2000
20 BBC News online, 6 July 2001
21 Daily Telegraph, 10 March 2001
22 Resolution on cloning, 12 March 1997, Resolution on human cloning, 15 January 1998, Resolution on the decision by the European Patent Office on the cloning of human beings, 30 March 2000.
23 Resolution on Human Cloning, 7 September 2000.
24 Resolution on Human Cloning, 7 September 2000, Article 4; Resolution on Human Cloning, 15 January 1998, Article 3.
25 Resolution on Human Cloning, 7 September 2000, Article 10.
26 ibid, Recital H: "...there is no difference between cloning for therapeutic purposes and cloning for the purposes of reproduction".
27 Memorandum of the Council of Ministers regarding the Common Position on the directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions, 6 July 1998: "the term 'human being' means the human being beginning with the embryonic phase.".
28 European Parliament resolution on Human Cloning, 7 September 2000, Article 3. Press conference in the House of Lords, Dr Peter Liese, MEP, London, 19 May 2000

'A Way of Life' The Soiety for the Protection of Unborn Children March 2002

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