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South Africa to Follow Permissive British Model in Therapeutic Cloning Regulations

JOHANNESBURG, August 17, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - More countries are using the
false distinction between so-called 'therapeutic' and 'reproductive' cloning to allow the creation of human beings as living research subjects. An article on the online magazine, allAfrica.com, demonstrates the danger of a chain reaction when one country after another allows unethical research practices.

In recent months, LifeSiteNews.com has reported that Britain, Korea, France, Canada, Japan and Israel have allowed scientists to proceed with cloning experiments, either openly or clandestinely through loopholes in regulating legislation. Now South Africa has followed suit. The Health Department of South Africa has offered draft regulations that closely follow the British model, one that is considered among the most permissive in the world. South African writer Clair Keeton says the research is 'potentially controversial' but that the proposed South African regulations are 'in line with latest British policy.'

Professor Jacquie Greenberg from the University of Cape Town said: "We don't support human cloning for reproductive purposes. But if we say no to therapeutic cloning, we throw out all stem cell research." However, this is well-known to be fraudulent. Stem cells from human embryos, either cloned or those from IVF procedures, make up only a fraction of those that are used in disease research and they are considered too dangerous to use in direct therapies for human beings. To date no cures have been found using stem cells from human embryos but stem cells from ethical sources are used regularly with
great success in numerous treatments for diseases including cancer and Parkinson's.

Anthony Ozimic, political secretary for the UK's Society for the Protection of
Unborn Children said recently, "Human cloning is unnecessary because adult stem cell research, a rapidly advancing ethical alternative to embryo experimentation, is already providing treatments for the very same diseases that pro-cloning scientists claim to be interested in treating. Even in the unlikely event that experiments on embryos did prove to have some beneficial effect, it would still be unacceptable to use human beings in this way."

Read Previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
UK Scientists Commence Human Cloning after Government's Final Approval
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/aug/04081103.html
Vatican Tells United Nations 'Therapeutic' Cloning is Worse than Reproductive Cloning
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/nov/02112002.html

France to Allow Research on Living Embryos: Only "Reproductive" Cloning a Crime
Against the Human Race
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/jul/040
70906.html

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