A South Korean company is claiming that it has achieved a pregnancy using cloned embryos and that the pregnancy is ongoing. The company, BioFusion, is affiliated to Clonaid, the company set up by a religious cult which is desperate to be the first to create a cloned baby. The woman is said to be two months pregnant, although she has not made a public appearance and no scientific paper announcing the development has been published.
Although legislation regarding cloning and stem cell research has been drafted in South Korea, it has yet to appear on the statute book. In the meantime, the Seoul District Public Prosecutors Office has been asked to launch a criminal investigation into the company's claims in the hope that it can be prosecuted for flouting rules on unethical research practices.
Meanwhile, philosopher Mary Warnock has made public her view that human reproductive cloning could be an ethical treatment for male infertility, should the procedure become safe for patients and the cloned offspring. Promoting her new book, Making babies, Warnock has made heads turn by her apparent change of heart since her own committee of enquiry into human fertilisation and embryology recommended in 1984 that human cloning be outlawed. The Warnock Report formed the basis of legislation which was passed in 1990.
Lady Warnock is concerned that the public and parliamentary discussion about cloning has been rather knee-jerk: 'I was just slightly ashamed of us when we rushed into this legislation [banning reproductive cloning] because of the wild threats of Professor Antinori'.
Sources and References
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S Korea launches cloning inquiry
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Koreans join race to create cloned baby
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Warnock: no ethical reason to ban cloning
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