"Dr. Irving Weissman's claim that
somatic cell nuclear transfer is not human cloning is simply
false," said Father Joseph Howard, director of the American
Bioethics Advisory Commission (a project of American Life
League).
"It is a well known fact among the scientific community
that somatic cell nuclear transfer is one of many different
techniques that could be used to clone human beings. It is
immoral and an outrage for a scientist of his stature to
purposefully mislead the public for his own personal agenda. I
join with my colleagues in demanding Dr. Weissman's immediate
resignation."
Stanford University announced its intention to produce stem
cells for medical research through a human cloning technique
called somatic cell nuclear transfer. Dr. Irving Weissman,
director of Stanford's Institute for Cancer/Stem Cell Biology,
was quoted in the Associated Press as saying that his planned
research is "not even close" to cloning.
"Finding treatments and studying diseases is noble," said
Howard, "but not on the backs of human embryos, who are living
human beings that deserve to be protected by law." Howard
added that the recent developments at Stanford University
"makes it clear to us that Congressional action is needed to
ban all human cloning. The ABAC is committed to working with
all members of the U.S. Congress to craft a comprehensive bill
to render illegal all forms of human cloning."
Posted: 12 Dec 02
