Bishop Supports Human Cloning

Edited by Stuart F. Hill

CONTROVERSIAL human cloning for reproductive purposes, which is banned in Britain, should be considered by scientists in the future, a retired church leader said yesterday.

Richard Holloway, a former Bishop of Edinburgh and leader of the Scottish Episcopal Church, who is known for his liberal views on sexuality and homosexuality, was a guest speaker at a high-profile debate on the subject by The Royal Society of Edinburgh early November.

The Society was criticised after it refused an invite to the event to Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori, who provoked international condemnation in January when he announced his desire to clone men who cannot procreate by natural methods.

Mr Holloway said he supported the notion of human cloning for fertility reasons, but felt the necessary scientific expertise to carry it out responsibly does not yet exist.

He argued that much of the public’s opposition of cloning originated from cultural and psychological, rather than ethical factors.

Mr Holloway said the current method of cloning in which embryos are split raises no ethical quandary.

"Cloning of this sort does not produce copies of the same person - it produces unique individuals who have the same genotype. Clones of this sort are no more ethically problematic than identical twins."  

On the issue of cloning by nuclear substitution, the method by which Prof Antinori wants to replicate men, Mr Holloway said: "Left to the pure processes of nature, many of us would be dead by now. Indeed, it could be argued that it is our nature to re-order nature."

Globalchange (anti-human cloning site)