A deeply divided UN legal committee adopted a non-binding
resolution on February 18, calling on world governments to ban all
forms of human cloning. Thirty-five countries, including China,
Belgium and Britain, voted against the declaration.??
Therapeutic cloning is the focus of the debate. Chinese
representative to the committee Su Wei said that the wording of the
declaration is vague and the prohibition on "all forms of human
cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and
the protection of human life" might be misunderstood as including
therapeutic cloning.
Therapeutic cloning refers to the cloning of human embryos to
obtain stem cells for research. Opponents to the procedure claim
that a zygote formed in asexual reproduction is already a living
being whose rights should be safeguarded.
He Zuoxiu, a theoretical physicist and academician from the
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS),
published an article as early as in 2002 titled Supporting Human
Cloning Research in a Cautious Way. The piece set off a heated
nationwide debate.
"The heart of the matter lies in the conflict between cloning of
human embryos for medical research and the patients' interests,"
said He in an interview with the Beijing News on Sunday. "An
individual zygote has no sensory function or nervous system, thus
it is difficult to regard it as a 'true' human being. Protecting
the rights of a 'nonhuman' at the expense of millions of invalids
who might be cured as a result of therapeutic cloning, -- I would
call it a practice detrimental to social progress."
Technically speaking, He noted, therapeutic cloning is more
complicated than reproductive cloning and involves more ethical
issues. To avoid unnecessary conflicts with countries such as the
United States that advocate an overall ban on cloning technologies,
China has adopted a policy of supporting therapeutic but opposing
reproductive cloning.
Li Sun, an ethics postdoctoral researcher at the Philosophy
Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that so
far neither advocates nor opponents of therapeutic cloning have
established strong foundations for their positions.
International practice allows the use of an embryo within 14
days of fertilization for research purposes, on the basis that it
has not been able to form an individual being. But the 14-day rule
does not hold up well under close scrutiny. Various countries and
cultures in fact have widely variant views on whether or not
embryos are entitled to human rights, according to Li.
In his opinion, the only valid reason against human cloning is
the immature state of current technology, not human rights
considerations.
Animal cloning still remains at an experimental stage.
Indiscreetly applying that technology to human beings is a
scientific as well as a moral problem, Li said.
Duan Enkui, head of the CAS Institute of
Zoology, said on Sunday, "Therapeutic cloning is conducive to
solving the difficult problem of immunologic rejection." He stated
that the Chinese government has given explicit backing to
therapeutic cloning research within legal and ethical bounds to
save people's lives.
China has been active in developing cloning technology. The
birth of Weiwei, a female calf, in Caoxian County, Shandong
Province, on January 18, 2002, marked the first successful
cloning experiment conducted independently by China. Unfortunately,
Weiwei died the following day.
Beijing's first cloned calf, Shunhua, was born at a cattle farm
in Shunyi District on October 26, 2002.
(China.org.cn by Shao Da, February 22, 2005)