Organization Says British Approved Human Cloning Violates Nuremburg Code

Professor Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, the famed “creator” of Dolly the sheep, has been given permission to use and destroy human embryos in cloning experiments.

“The destruction of human embryos by scientists is a moral evil which should be equated with the Nazis’ experimentation on Jews in the Second World War,” said Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition, Canada. “Human beings must be protected from those who would commodify them and destroy their lives, whether those lives are initiated in a petri dish or not,” he continued.

“Wilmut’s statement that ‘This is not reproductive cloning in any way’ is false. Nuclear transfer cloning, the technique that they intend to use, immediately produces a human embryo, therefore reproduction has already occurred. Some researchers, however, falsely maintain that an embryo is not ‘reproduced’ until it, the embryo, has successfully implanted in the lining of a uterus, six days after conception. The fact that a human being comes into existence immediately at fertilization, or as a result of cloning, is accepted by the science of human embryology today,” says Dr. John Shea, Campaign Life Coalition’s medical consultant.

He continues: “The British researchers are reported to have said that this stem cell technique will greatly enhance understanding of motor neuron disease and accelerate the discovery of new drugs. This opinion is at best a guess, and is in any case, morally irrelevant. One must not use evil means even for a good purpose.

“The report spoke of ‘therapeutic cloning, aimed at treating diseases by creating embryos to produce tissue that is a patient's perfect match.’ This is incorrect in two ways: 1) Since the technique kills a human being, it cannot be truly described as therapeutic. 2) This technique does not produce a perfect match for a patient. The mitochondrial DNA of the ovum used in the cloning process is foreign to the patient and tissue rejection of the cloned stem cells is possible. The Wilmut research group has falsified facts and tried to justify their research by using invalid moral arguments.”

Campaign Life Coalition’s media spokesperson, Gillian Long, points out “Wilmut’s proposed research is in direct contradiction of the Nuremberg Code, the first precept of which is ‘The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.’ Human embryos cannot give their consent, so they are not acceptable research subjects under internationally recognized research standards.”

Campaign Life Coalition is calling on the Canadian government and international bodies to decry the use of human beings for destructive research.

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