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Winston "misleading public" over human cloning
Westminster, 26 October 2000--The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) is warning Members of Parliament that Lord Winston, the fertility expert, is misleading the public over human cloning.
In a memorandum to all MPs, John Smeaton, national director of SPUC, writes: "Lord Winston is on record1
today as saying that so-called therapeutic cloning does not involve
making another human being. This is dangerous nonsense. Human cloning
involves the same technique as that used to create Dolly the sheep, in
whose case at least 277 embryos were created, most of which were
destroyed.
"The European Parliament has warned of the danger of
'linguistic sleight of hand to erode the moral significance of human
cloning'2 and I fear that this is an instance of just such a misleading use of words.
"Lord Winston also says that he cannot see why people are feeling
threatened by cloning for reproductive purposes. The reason people feel
threatened is that human cloning for so-called "therapeutic" purposes
and for reproductive purposes involves treating human beings as
commodities to be ordered or disposed of at will.
"All human cloning involves the creation of a new human being
who will either be used for experiments or attempts might be made to
develop the technology which leads to the birth of cloned babies.
"It is vital that MPs do not take their moral lead from Lord Winston."
SPUC's warnings come as Members of Parliament are preparing to
consider a bill to legalise therapeutic cloning. Dr Evan Harris's
10-minute rule bill is on the Commons order paper for next Tuesday (the
31st).
| 1 | interview with Steve Boggan, http://www.independent.co.uk/altavista/altavista.pl?story=news/People/Profiles/2000-10/interview261000.shtml, 26 October 2000 |
| 2 resolution on human cloning, PE 293.798 |
