Some religious observers of bioethics are reacting with concern to a decision by the British government to approve human cell cloning for research.
Ian Wilmut, who directed the creation of the cloned sheep “Dolly” in Scotland in 1996, received a human cloning license Feb. 8 from the British government.
Wilmut and Christopher Shaw, a motor neuron expert in London, will lead an effort to find a treatment for motor neuron disease such as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
To study nerve function in the diseases, they will clone cells from affected patients and compare them with nerve cells developed from human embryos without the disease.
Carrie Gordon Earll, bioethics analyst for Focus on the Family, said it is not ethical for researchers to use and discard human embryos – including those produced by cloning, which transfers an adult cell nucleus into a human egg.
“It’s alarming in that it is one more step toward creating human life for the purpose of destroying it,” Earll said.
Richard Sherlock, a researcher on medical ethics and biotechnology, said he does not object to cloning for medical research but fears licenses may be granted to researchers who want to change human characteristics that don’t cause disease. “We should be really thinking if we want to go down this road because this will result in wanting to make a better human.”
(RNS)
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