Bishops' response to cloning decision

After yesterday's decision in the High Court, on the case brought by the Pro-Life Alliance against the government regarding human cloning, Archbishop Peter Smith, Chairman of the Department for Christian Responsibility and Citizenship, issued the following statement: 'This decision of the High Court in which the Government have been defeated is very significant. Many people in our society and in other European countries which have outlawed human cloning were deeply concerned when the UK Government sought to allow so-called therapeutic cloning, and that it took this grave step without introducing primary legislation. 'It would seem now from this judgement that human cloning is effectively unregulated in UK law. We strongly urge the Government to use this opportunity to think again. Human cloning even for therapeutic purposes involves the deliberate creation and destruction of new human lives. 'Evidence is mounting all the time that the medical advances for which cloned human embryos were wanted, can be made in other ways: there are other sources of stem cells which offer the same prospects of treatment. Furthermore, to allow human cloning for one purpose will surely inexorably lead to the use of cloning for birth. The Government should now do what it should have done in the first place: pass a law to ban human cloning altogether.' source: CMO