California scientists create clones, earn swift Vatican rebuke

Associated Press:

Scientists in California say they have produced embryos that are clones of two men, a potential step toward developing scientifically valuable stem cells.

...

"I found it difficult to determine what was substantially new," said Doug Melton of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He said the "next big advance will be to create a human embryonic stem cell line" from cloned embryos. "This has yet to be achieved."

Dr. George Daley of the Harvard institute and Children's Hospital Boston called the new report interesting but agreed that "the real splash" will be when somebody creates stem cell lines from cloned human embryos.

"It's only a matter of time before some group succeeds," Daley said.

CWNews covers Bp. Sgreccia's response:

Reports of the first successful human cloning have drawn a quick protest from the Vatican.

Responding to a claim that the California-based Stemagen Corporation had produced a cloned human embryo, Bishop Elio Sgreccia said that such as step would be "the worst type of exploitation of a human being."

Speaking on Vatican Radio, Bishop Sgreccia, the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said that human cloning would "rank among the most morally illicit acts" possible.

...

Samuel Wood, the chief executive of Stemagen, said that his company's research was aimed exclusively at stimulating medical research. Wood-- whose skin cells were combined with an ovum in the cloning process-- said that he is opposed to any research that would allow the cloned embryos to be born. "It's unethical and it's illegal, and we hope no one else does it either," he said.

The reported success of the Stemagen cloning experiment has not yet been confirmed by other scientists.

I've said before and I'll say again, it would certainly be helpful in these situations if the Catholic response to these announcements was more than "this is unethical" and went onto explain the exact reasons - however briefly - why cloning is wrong. There is an answer and it deserves to be communicated.

Related links:

• Catholic Culture: Human Cloning
• Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference: Human Cloning
• Sr. Terese Auer: Cloning, A Catholic Moral Evaluation

Fr. Thomas Berg in NRO on Monkey Cloning

The world of stem-cell science was rocked Wednesday by news that researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, led by Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov, had cloned embryos from rhesus monkeys and derived embryonic stem cells from the clones. Their work was published online in the journal Nature. For those opposed to embryo-destructive research, some might be thinking of yesterday as a kind of “black Wednesday.” I am inclined to disagree. In fact, history may well show us that November 14, 2007, marked a turning point in the battle against embryo-destructive research. [Click here for full text.]

Fr. Berg is the executive director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, which has issued a press release in response to the news. Media coverage from CNA and the AP.