The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Sunday’s announcement that scientists in Massachusetts had begun to make cloned human embryos reverberated through international scientific, religious and legislative circles Monday, culminating in words of disapproval from the Pope and President Bush and a call in the U.S. Senate to quickly pass legislation banning the research.
"The use of embryos to clone is wrong," Bush told reporters Monday. "We should not as a society grow life to destroy it. It’s morally wrong in my opinion."
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said he would scrap a recent agreement he’d made with the Senate leadership, through which all discussion of human cloning legislation was to be postponed until early next year, and would instead push hard to pass a sweeping ban in the waning weeks of this session.
The House passed such a ban in July — one that would make it illegal not only to make cloned human babies but also banning the creation of cloned embryos for research, as the Massachusetts scientists have done.
The Senate has been deeply divided on whether to pass a similarly broad ban, as Brownback has proposed, or one that would simply preclude the creation of cloned newborns.
The Massachusetts work, by scientists at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, was merely incremental by scientific standards. Researchers at the privately held company used cloning techniques to make several early human embryos, each from a single cell taken from an adult.
The goal is to grow those embryos to a stage where they contain human embryonic stem cells, which can be made into potential replacement tissues for patients suffering from various degenerative diseases. Although the cloned embryos began to grow, the scientists reported, they died before reaching that key stage of development.
"We’re talking about human beings being created and harvested," said Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee. "Unless Congress acts, we’ll be reading that this company or another has opened a human embryo farm."
Richard Doerflinger of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops —who learned of the work Sunday afternoon after coming home from a viewing of the new Star Wars prequel "Attack of the Clones" — said the new research represented "arrogance of the highest order."
And in Rome on Monday, Vatican authorities swiftly and unequivocally condemned ACT’s announcement. Even the possibility of saving other lives cannot justify the production of an embryo that is destined for destruction, the Vatican said in a statement.
Supporters argue that cloned embryos are only clumps of cells that could lead to a cure for a range of deadly and debilitating diseases.
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