(Their timing is impeccable - Bill C-13 is in Third Reading before
Canada's Parliament with a potential vote before April 11 - murray)

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The Hill Times

Monday, April 7, 2003

Say no to human cloning

Support Grit MP Paul Szabo's motion

By Jean Morse-Chevrier

Regarding the commentary "Not all cloning is alike: MPs must not let
outrageous claims of Raelians drive national policy development," by
Timothy Caulfield et al., (The Hill Times, Feb. 24).
http://www.thehilltimes.ca/2003/february/24/caulfield/

In spite of their impressive titles, the illustrious writers have
neglected essential issues surrounding the question of cloning and
are not on the same wavelength as many of their counterparts on the
American and European continents.

In campaigning in favour of therapeutic cloning, they maintain that
we should not give in to fear of the slippery slope. They argue that
the population and many scientists are in favour of therapeutic
cloning. They say that therapeutic cloning shouldn't be banned for
not being proven to be medically beneficial while at the same time
claiming that those proofs will soon come. Finally they suggest that
opposition to therapeutic cloning by Parliamentarians may be due to
reproductive cloning scares.

How have legislators in Europe dealt with the issue of cloning?

On Jan. 30, France's Minister of Health Jean-François Mattei
summarized his reasons for refusing authorization of therapeutic
cloning: animal experimentation has not proven the efficiency of this
technique, there are risks of the development of a market of "ova,"
it would constitute an open door to reproductive cloning. According
to Mr. Mattei, therapeutic cloning is contrary to Article 18 of the
Council of Europe's convention on human rights and biomedicine signed
in Oviedo in 1997.

The French Senate has prohibited therapeutic cloning; the
transgression of this prohibition will be punishable with a seven-
year prison sentence and a fine of 100,000 euros. They also
unanimously prohibited reproductive cloning, stating that any
intervention intending to bring to birth a child genetically
identical to another human being, living or dead, is prohibited. In
the event of a transgression they have voted in favour of
incrimination on the grounds of a "crime against humanity." An
amendment would allow the dissolution of any sectarian movement in
the case of an infringement to this prohibition.

On Jan. 17, the German Parliament took a stand against cloning as
being "incompatible with human dignity." The mainstream German
political parties have all taken a stand in favour of total
prohibition of human cloning. The three Parliamentary groups of the
Bundestag declared that cloning of human embryos is incompatible with
human dignity, no matter what technique is used.

What about on this side of the Atlantic?

On Feb. 27, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation
that prohibits the creation of human embryos by cloning, and killed a
bill that sought to allow therapeutic cloning while forbidding
reproductive cloning. American polls show that the public is solidly
against cloning.

In Canada, the polls, such as the one carried out by Ipsos Reid in
2002 or by Léger and Léger in 2003, do not properly inform the public
in the way the questions are formulated. They state that the cloning
of embryos for therapeutic purposes is not the cloning of a "whole
person" but "only copies parts of human tissue and cells," while at
the same time asking if the person is in favour of "cloning embryos"
(Ipsos Reid). Obviously the human embryo is a human being; even Bill
C-13 refers to the embryo as a "human organism." Léger and Léger
(2003) ask whether the person is in favour of cloning for the
creation of "stem cells" or for the creation of "living human
beings." Cloning does not create stem cells but rather complete
living human beings. Embryonic stem cells are taken from complete
living human embryos (beings), thereby causing their destruction --
whereas adult stem cells are taken from human tissue, blood or bone
marrow without causing any harm to the human being. That is why the
Catholic bishops of France, Canada and the Vatican have stated that
only adult stem cell research (where the stem cells are taken from
human tissue without the destruction of a human being) is acceptable.
Research on embryos, cloned or not, is always an attack on human
life.

In January 2002, the Quebec provincial government forbade all human
cloning as well as experimentation on embryonic stem cells. It
promotes research on adult stem cells; these have already proven
their usefulness in medical treatments, contrary to stem cells taken
from embryos.

In a special report on cloning in February 2003, the French magazine
Valeurs Actuelles quotes professor Jacques Testart who disapproves of
therapeutic cloning because the benefits of this technique have not
been demonstrated in animals. He does not foresee that any research
project on human embryos could be hoped to be beneficial. According
to him, British researchers have already used 40,000 embryos created
during in vitro fertilization without any positive results. According
to him, what motivates researchers to want to use human embryos is
their low cost. He says human embryos are readily accessible and cost
much less than the embryos of primates.

From the ethical point of view, Father Gonzalo Miranda, dean of the
Faculty of Bioethics of the Pontifical Athenea "Regina Apostolorum"
proclaimed, on Feb. 3, that life does not exist of itself; rather it
is always a living human being that exists. He maintained that the
problem we are up against is that of exploiting human persons such as
embryos for the good of another person, when the embryos themselves
are whole human beings even though they are in the embryonic state as
we all have been. The theologian insisted that the main problem is
the tendency to justify this abuse, utilization and exploitation of a
human being for the good of another. He considers it extremely
serious that we could arrive at justifying using human lives.

It would therefore appear that neither international legislation,
polls, ethical arguments, nor medical considerations can justify the
approval by our Parliamentarians of so-called therapeutic cloning, as
requested by the authors of the commentary in The Hill Times on Feb.
24. On the contrary, Bill C-13 needs to be amended in order to
prohibit all types of human cloning, as proposed by the federal
Liberal MP Paul Szabo, in Motion No. 13.

Jean Morse-Chevrier is a PhD and the National Public Affairs Officer
for Campaign Life Coalition in Ottawa, Ont.

© April 7, 2003 The Hill Times

SOURCE: The Hill Times
http://www.thehilltimes.ca/2003/april/7/morse/

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