Archbishop Pell in protest on cloning

Sydney
4 November 2001

Indifference main worry, says Dr Pell

Open your hearts to the refugees, bishop pleads

Beazley visits aged villa

Health care needs more money

Two Australias: Labor backs national poverty summit

Biblical principle behind split-income tax policy

Sydney’s new Maronite bishop

Archbishop Pell in protest on cloning

Amnesty backing imprisoned priest

‘Bishop buses’ ready to roll

Trinity students get their sea legs on board the Kanimbla

‘PR campaign’ on embryos

Antioch: 20 years of showing the light

Unity Group enjoys day in the sun

Soldier, teacher, actor, priest – Mark’s inspired journey

Why do boys lag behind?

Sacrament of Penance: NZ bishop denies ‘radical reform’ charge

Letters: Catholic schools

Conversation: An hilarious ministry - Fr Hilary Doran, Carmelite priest

Reflection: Questions that will require religious answers

Too many prisons?

Opinion: Can the West avoid a ‘holy war’ with Islam?

Having fun with Vinnies to help those in need

‘God’s engineer’

Tamil Catholics celebrate their 10th birthday

Education: Teach your children ‘how to pray – not what to say’

Inspirations: Fatima ‘prayer for peace’

Archbishop Pell in protest on cloning

By Marilyn Kerjean

The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr George Pell has joined other Church leaders in warning of the “grave offence to human dignity” of “producing human embryos by a cloning process or any other method of non-sexual reproduction”.

He joined the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, the Rev Professor James Haire of the Uniting Church, Rabbi Moshe Gutnick of the Australian Jewish Medical Federation and the Rev Tim Costello, president of the Baptist Union of Australia, and others in expressing concern at the NSW Government decision to introduce cloning legislation before uniform Commonwealth-state laws have been put in place.

The leaders say in an open letter to the Federal, State and Territory governments: “We advise ... that producing human embryos by a cloning process or any other method of non-sexual reproduction … produces a laboratory embryo with no parents or guardians, in fact, no one concerned to protect his or her interests.

“All such embryos would be likely to be destroyed.”

The letter, whose 80 signatories include other religious leaders, surgeons, barristers and bio-ethicists, asks for appropriate national standards for medical research in the area. It says: “The supposed distinction between ‘therapeutic’ and ‘reproductive’ cloning must be exposed for the furphy it is: to produce an embryo is always ‘reproductive’; to destroy an embryo is never ‘therapeutic’.

“So-called ‘therapeutic cloning’ involves the manufacture of a new race of laboratory humans with the intention, right from the beginning, to exploit and destroy them as if they were laboratory animals. This would be the worst of all possible uses of the cloning technology.

“We urge (political leaders) to ensure that there are effective nationwide prohibitions on unethical alternatives such as the production and destruction of human embryos for experimental purposes, and the creation of a market for unethically procured embryonic stem cells.

“We ask our political leaders to have regard for the sacredness of all human beings, of whatever level of maturity, dependency or ability.

“We ask them to support adult stem cell research and to reject a policy of destroying some to treat others.”

The open letter argues that using a patient’s own tissues as a source of stem cells is safer, “especially as they have much greater direct therapeutic potential in terms of tissue compatibility”