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Doctors ignore cloning dangers
More articles on this topic: CloningSydney Morning Herald (Australia), Dec. 1, 2002
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/30/1038386358599.html
By Kylie Keogh and agencies
Despite the fact it’s illegal, condemned by scientists and is dangerous, two women are due to give birth to cloned babies in the next two months.
Not since the 1996 birth of Dolly the sheep in Britain – the first clone ever manufactured – has there been such debate on the cloning issue.
Ignoring worldwide criticism, controversial Italian gynaecologist Severino Antinori announced to journalists in Rome last week that an unidentified European woman was in her 33rd week of pregnancy and due early next month.
He said there was “a 90 per cent chance” that the “healthy” 2.7kg male foetus would make it to term.
In the US, the bizarre Raelian movement said the first of five women impregnated with cloned embryos was due to give birth to a baby girl by the end of the year.
French scientist Brigitte Boisselier, managing director of the group’s Clonaid project, said five pregnancies were under way, of which one was almost due.
Two US couples, two Asian couples and one European couple are involved in the project, Ms Boisselier said. The first couple due is from the US. Part of the Raelian belief is that all humans were created by cloning and that life on Earth was created by aliens who arrived here in flying saucers 25,000 years ago. They claim to have 55,000 members worldwide.
Dr Antinori also confirmed that two other women were pregnant with cloned embryos. One was in the 27th week of pregnancy and the other in the 28th.
But when pushed for details at the press conference in Rome, he refused to disclose their identities or where they lived.
He announced the pregnancies in April, but said he did not carry out the procedures himself. Instead he facilitated the project in a “cultural and scientific sense”.
The 57-year-old shot to fame in 1994 when he succeeded in helping a 63-year-old post-menopausal Italian woman become pregnant through fertilisation treatment administered at his Rome clinic.
What remains unsure is how Dr Antinori and the Raelians are able to undertake human cloning, which is almost universally banned. At the moment, Italy is preparing to pass legislation that would impose tough penalties for anyone involved in cloning humans.
In Australia, human cloning is illegal and hasn’t been supported in Federal Parliament or the greater community.
Kevin Andrews, Federal Minister for Ageing and appointed the Minister Responsible for Human Cloning last year, had carriage of a bill which referred to human cloning and the use of surplus IVF embryos.
The cloning aspect of the bill was passed unanimously through the Lower House.
Simon Longstaff, executive director of Sydney’s St James Ethics Centre, said there was a minefield of ethical and moral issues with experimental human cloning and that it was dangerous.
“Ian Wilmut, who was responsible for Dolly, said there were a number of deformities that were produced when developing the model that would become Dolly,” Dr Longstaff said.
“There is a lot of damage done along the way – defects during the pregnancy and the unknown defects after birth. As well, it’s a greater form of narcissism and reduces the intrinsic value of the person being born as a clone.
“Another thing with cloning is that it doesn’t take two people. A sperm is not needed if you want to make a carbon copy of yourself.”
Dr Longstaff said Dr Antinori and the Raelians would be “universally condemned in the scientific community”.
“He will not be celebrated, not at this potential cost,” he said. “This crosses a principle threshold.”
Not surprisingly, the Catholic Church has been outraged by DrAntinori’s project.
“The Church condemns human cloning as a method of procreation because it contradicts the Biblical principle of procreation through marriage,” The Vatican’s top moral theologian Father Gino Concetti said.
“He has only hypothetical theories. So far, he has not shown anything concrete. If it is true, then the Church condemns it.”
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