UK TRANSHUMANIST ASSOCIATION

Transhumanist education, promotion and networking for the United Kingdom

UN ban on therapeutic and reproductive cloning would be double folly

The US-sponsored campaign for a total UN ban on cloning is backward and dangerous. The UK, and other countries that currently allow therapeutic cloning, should not sign up to it. Therapeutic cloning research could save lives and should be encouraged, not banned. Reproductive cloning procedures have not been demonstrated to have sufficient safety and their use with humans would be unethical at this point in time. However, the demonisation of reproductive cloning is wrong and, once concerns over safety have been overcome, all should be free to choose this technology as a regulated method of reproduction.

The UK Transhumanist Association welcomes and shares the Royal Society's concerns and condemnation of the initiative to ban therapeutic cloning. Unlike the Royal Society and the other academies that have mobilised against the proposed ban, however, we extend our concern and condemnation to the proposed ban on reproductive cloning. Today's sensible approach to reproductive cloning would be a temporary ban, rather than a blanket one, to be regularly reviewed as the field develops and to be lifted, if and when the right conditions appear. Reproductive cloning should be viewed as another reproductive choice, perfectly acceptable once proven safe.

Therapeutic cloning – stem cells harvested from cloned embryos hold the promise of cures for some of today's major killer diseases, such as heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's. To ban this type of medical research globally as a consequence of domestic US politics (i.e. the influence of the Christian Right and of the President's Council on Bioethics which is heavily weighted towards religious interests) would be both backward and dangerous. Research on adult stem cells has been proposed as a way to pursue this research without offending the religious sensibilities of some but to rely on this avenue alone would be to severely hamper the field and the development of new therapies.

Reproductive cloning – if, once the safety of the procedures involved has been established, reproductive cloning is undertaken within a suitable regulatory framework then there is no reason why it should not be practiced. This might well take a number of years however, the UK Transhumanist Association denounces the present widespread and groundless demonisation of a practice that should be seen as an opportunity for families that cannot benefit from alternative IVF therapies.

The UK Transhumanist Association supports freedom of scientific research and freedom of reproductive choice for families.