"Designer babies" and cloning.

London--Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority decided in mid-July to relax the grounds on which embryos can be created and screened to produce a genetic match of tissue to help a sick sibling and then destroyed.

Catholic Archbishop Peter Smith of Cardiff, chairman of the Dept. of Christian Responsibility and Citizenship of the England/Wales Catholic Bishops' Conference, expressed his sympathy for parents searching for a tissue donor for a sick child. However, he stated, "Once we allow a human life to be deliberately produced, then selected and destroyed, simply to benefit another, we have lost our ethical bearings" (Zenit, July 22, 2004).

Note: The flawed human reproduction bill passed in 2003 by Canada's Parliament permits stem-cell experimentation on "surplus" embryos left over from infertility treatments, but bans human cloning for any purpose. No such limits will inhibit British scientists. Researchers at the University of Newcastle have been granted a licence to create human embryos as a source of stem cells. They hope to extract insulin-producing cells from the embryos for transplantation into diabetes patients, with later potential treatment for degenerative diseases. Obviously they have little faith in the versatility of adult stem cells the only variety to have so far produced concrete results. A leading Newcastle researcher stated that it would be at least five years before any patients could receive the new stem-cell treatment.

Britain now joins South Korea as the only countries permitting cloning.