BMA finds cloning ethically acceptable

Public hostility to human reproductive cloning may be based on an 'illogical and transient fear of a new technology', according to a British Medical Association (BMA) discussion paper presented at this week's World Medical Association meeting in Tel Aviv. If the cloning method of cell nucleus replacement (CNR) were eventually to become safe, the BMA paper argues that there would no longer be any compelling arguments against the use of the technique for reproductive purposes.

There is currently a widespread international moratorium on human reproductive cloning. In answer to a widely expressed reservation about the possible motivations of parents who use this method to have children, the paper asks: 'Do people always have children for the sake of the child itself? In reality, the reason why most people have children is more to do with their own wishes and desires than the child's'. The paper adds that a preferable method of cloning would be embryo splitting. Clones produced by this method would then share both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, could be born like twins into the same environment and would avoid having a confused genetic heritage.