All Forms of Human Embryos Cloning Banned

The stir over cloning human embryos came back again as U.S. President George W Bush (photo) on the 10th urged Senate to pass legislation banning human cloning for any purpose.

Meeting scientists and religionists at White House, who are opposing to cloning human embryos, President Bush said, “I think cloning of human embryos both for producing a baby and for treatment of disease should be banned. I strongly support inclusive legislation banning all forms of human embryos cloning.”

And he stressed, “our children are not commodity but the present of God, whom we should love and respect. Medical research without moral object is like a trip to the world without ethical compass, where we live in regret.”

President Bush has consistently opposed to the human embryos cloning while the federal government in August last year permitted providing therapeutic research budget only for 64 existing stem cell lines taken from embryos discarded by fertility clinics.

The House passed a ban on all human cloning last July with 265 for and 162 against. It is difficult to say which bill would pass at Senate, where both the bill banning all human embryos cloning and the bill banning the cloning for producing a baby, but permitting the cloning for disease treatment research.

Meanwhile, Dr. Richard Gardiner from British Oxford University insisted in a research report carried in a science journal New Scientist that a woman delivered a cloned baby has possibility of a malignant uterine cancer of villus membrane cancer, and the cloned baby would die early or live with a serious disorder.

Han Ki-Heung eligius@donga.com