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)