BRISTOL, Tenn. (LSN) -- The
Christian Medical and Dental Society, which represents more than 11,500
doctors and medical students nationwide, condemned plans announced Jan.
6 to begin cloning humans for profit.
Dr. David Stevens noted that
an individual would have to sacrifice hundreds of lives just to attempt
a cloning procedure.
Cloning a single animal,
the sheep Dolly, involved killing 277 developing embryos and resulted in
some duplicate lambs being born with severe and lethal birth defects, Dr.
Stevens explained.
"We all sympathize with infertile
couples, but is it worth paying the price in human lives and suffering
to come up with an experimental baby?" he asked.
Richard G. Seed, who announced
his plans to clone humans for profit in early January, said he plans to
begin his work on a human clone within three months.
"My target is to produce
a two-month pregnant female (within the next 18 months)," he said.
Speaking about Seed, Dr.
Stevens noted, "This individual's scheme is evidence that current executive
and legislative efforts to curtail human cloning are flawed and need to
be strengthened."
Seed, meanwhile, has been
making more and more outrageous statements to the media.
Responding to critics charging
he wants to play God, Seed said, "If God made man in His own image. God
intended for man to become one with God ... Cloning and the reprogramming
of DNA is the first serious step in becoming one with God."
On Jan. 8, Seed told reporters
that he foresees as many as 200,000 human clones a year once his process
is perfected, at a price for each clone far lower than the $1 million the
first one will cost.
"When I was seven years old,
I was brilliant and crazy. I don't mind being called crazy,'' said the
renegade physicist. Seed vowed that if cloning is banned in the United
States, he will open a clinic in Mexico or another location abroad.
He claims to have assembled
a team of doctors to assist
him, but refuses to reveal
their identities.
U.S. President Bill Clinton
said Jan. 9 that he will press Congress to pass a law prohibiting human
cloning. He has vowed to maintain a ban on federal dollars being used for
human cloning research and development.
Meanwhile, some experts in
the field of new reproductive technology indicate that laws will do little
to halt the development of human cloning.
According to reports by the
Reuters news service, researchers are already refining techniques on primate
and human egg cells that will bring them to the onset of human cloning.
And in a related development,
researchers in Boston announced Jan. 20 that they have successfully cloned
two identical, genetically engineered calves. It is seen as a possible
breakthrough in the mass production of drugs for humans via cows' milk.
The cloned calves are the
result of four years of work by genetic engineers. They follow successful
cloning of a sheep by Scottish researcher Dr. Ian Wilmut.
-- via LifeSite News Service
