EUROPE/SPAIN - Spain is the ninth country to allow therapeutic cloning: “Human cloning, whatever the end, is always and from every point of view anti-ethical and deplorable. We stand before an unimaginable path and sadly we do not know where it will lead us ”

Madrid (Agenzia Fides) - The Spanish parliament approved on 14 June a Law on bio-medical research which encourages and regulates “therapeutic cloning” in view of the supposed 'benefits' and 'improvement' of public health. Spain is the fourth country in Europe to allow therapeutic cloning and the ninth in the world after United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Japan, Australia, Israel, South Korea and Singapore. The final text was voted by all the parties except the Popular Party which voted against certain "grave errors and significant voids".
Experts in the field have said that there are no scientific reasons to justify human cloning. The president of the Spanish Family Forum Benigno Blanco, said the law marks an " ethical retrocession totally open to challenge" because it renders to human embryo "mere material" for investigation. "I think the law is profoundly negative because Spain will be one of the countries in the world where the life of the human person in its stage of development is less protected" said Blanco, adding that the law puts the " interests of pharmacological investigation and biomedical technology before the ethical consideration to protect the human embryo". He concluded the law "is a step backwards" from the bio-ethical point of view.
Spain's national association of Bio-ethics and Medical Ethics said the law was passed without considering the opinions of experts on the matter. Mónica López Barahona scientific directress of VidaCord and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life said the law allows 'therapeutic cloning' which consists in the transferring of a nucleus into an egg, “as if what it generates is not a zygote and therefore an embryo”. “We are talking about a human person, and there is no scientific reason to justify cloning, which is a difficult technique and has so far failed to demonstrate any application and it presents serious ethic issues". said Mónica López Barahona
Prof. Ignacio Villa Elízaga, said those who approved the law are apparently not informed about the results obtained with pluri-potential adult stem cells and the fact that stem cells are present in the umbilical cord of new born babies. " Human cloning, whatever the end, is always and from every point of view anti-ethical and deplorable. We stand before an unimaginable path and sadly we do not know where it will lead us" said Prof. Villa Elízaga. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 15/6/2007; righe 31, parole 430)