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(Their timing is impeccable - Bill C-13 is in Third Reading before Canada's Parliament with a potential vote before April 11 - murray) * * * 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/ * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn