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Human Clones Created to be Mined for Spare Parts

SEOUL, February 12, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The race to create living, cloned human beings for use in stem cell research has been won by researchers in South Korea. Seoul National University's Woo Suk Hwang and colleagues have created 30 human embryos that were cultured long enough to start producing the earliest body parts, and plan to destroy them to salvage the stem cells.

The stem cells, the researchers claim, can then be used to replace damaged tissue and to treat diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. However, no experimental therapies in human or animal trials have been successful. On the contrary, all attempts to use emrbyonic cells in experimental treatments have ended in disastrous and incurable side effects for the patients. Details of the research are published online by the journal Science, on its Science Express website.

The clone breakthrough will be used to advance even more ghastly work in manipulating the early stages of human life. These researchers' findings also make it possible to learn how to reprogram the human genome to an embryonic state. "This will likely accelerate the development of alternative ways of reprogramming human cells, which could in the future diminish the need to use human eggs for this purpose," said Roger Pedersen, professor of regenerative medicine, at the University of Cambridge, UK

Ethical researchers and human rights groups have already responded. "Controversy continues to swirl around killing even long-abandoned human embryos for research," said John F. Kilner, Ph.D., president of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. "The South Korean experiment disturbingly goes significantly further. It produces human embryos for the explicit purpose of fatally mining them to obtain bodily materials for experimental purposes. One does not need to see human embryos as full-fledged persons to be deeply troubled by such manipulation of human life," said Dr. Kilner.

The BBC online reports that the researchers sought approval for their work from "an ethical review board" before going ahead, giving an indication of the usual questionable moral value of modern "ethics" boards. Showing an astounding ignorance of his own action, Dr. Hwang said, "We will never try to produce cloned human beings." Professor Hwang also called for a worldwide ban on activities which would seek to use this technology to create living children. He said that any attempt to produce a baby would be "crazy".

BBC Online coverage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3480921.stm

Centre for Bioethics and Human Dignity:
http://www.cbhd.org/

For LifeSite Resources on stem cells, cloning and bioethics, see:
http://www.lifesite.net/features/stemcellembryo/

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