A Chinese lawmaker on Monday called for legislation on the
medical use of high technologies like clone to ensure that it
benefits the human society.
"High technologies could produce marvelous result when used in
medical treatment, but they could beget peril as well if not
well-regulated, said Chen Haixiao, a deputy to the National
People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature.
Clone technology for example has been proved to be of great
scientific value especially in clinical practice of organ
transplant, but it would bring serious challenges to human dignity
and morality once the technology was misused by extremists," said
Chen, also dean of the Taizhou Hospital in Zhejiang Province, east China.
Debate over human cloning was triggered after the birth of the
world's first cloned mammal "Dolly the sheep" in 1996. Apart from
moral concerns, experts also divide over technological defects of
cloning.
More than 30 countries have legislated to ban human cloning, but
some approved embryonic stem-cell research.
Chinese scientists cloned two goats -- Yuanyuan and Yangyang
--in June 2000. Yuanyuan died 36 hours after birth while Yangyang
celebrated her sixth birthday last year.
A calf was later cloned in 2002 from frozen stem cells.
(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2007)