Australian archbishop opposes cloning

Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne has announced his plans to approach Australian Prime Minister Steve Bracks and urge him to abandon his plan of passing a bill that would allow therapeutic cloning of human embryos.

The archbishop said he would seek talks with the premier once details of the bill were known, reported The Age.

According to Archbishop Hart, embryonic cloning was "always unethical" and there was "total opposition" from the Catholic Church.

Interestingly, Prime Minister Bracks had earlier said that his Catholic faith has not dissuaded him from proceeding with the bill.

"The opportunity to cure some of the intractable diseases around the world...is an opportunity we should not pass up or miss," he said.

"To allow human embryos to be deliberately created and then destroyed for scientific research is always unethical," the archbishop was quoted as saying. However, he added, the Catholic Church remains a "strong supporter" of research based on adult stem cells, as well as those derived from the blood of the umbilical cord.

Besides the archbishop, there are other voices of opposition, including that of former minister Christine Campbell who reportedly spoke against the bill for more than 20 minutes at a recently convened government caucus meeting.

Campbell said that benefits had not been extensively proven in animal testing and legalization of the procedure would put fertile women at risk by harvesting their eggs.

Anglican bioethics expert Alan Nichols said Anglicans supported stem cell research after weighing the competing principles of respect for life and scientific benefits.

Islamic Council of Victoria spokesman Waleed Aly said Muslims had not yet reached a consensus on stem cell research.

Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick said that if stem cell research could help preserve a sick person and did not involve loss of life, it should be pursued, but Judaism would prefer the use of adult stem cells.

Under the proposed legislation, researchers would be allowed to clone human embryos for medical research through somatic cell nuclear transfer, commonly known as therapeutic cloning. But researchers would not be allowed to merge an egg with sperm to create an embryo.

This research is already practiced in the U.S., Britain, Sweden, Japan, China, India and Israel.