Light from the North

Canada Comprehensively Bans Human Cloning

     (Wilberforce Forum - www.wilberforce.org) Though most Americans have not heard, there is great biotech news from Canada. After years of debate, a bill covering many aspects of reproductive technology has just been passed and awaits the formality of the royal assent. It contains many other good things too, like a ban on selling embryos and gametes and a ban on commercial surrogacy contracts. It also contains some provisions that are less good, such as the regulation of experiments on "spare" embryos from in vitro fertilization (this has been taking place without regulation; as most of my readers will agree, it would have been much better to ban it altogether).

     But the cloning ban lies at the heart of the legislation, and addresses in the right way the central question confronting the human race as we face the technology of the 21st century.

     This has raised a difficult issue for pro-life groups in Canada. They generally opposed the bill (C-6), although the Catholic bishops took a neutral position (they were criticized by some pro-lifers for doing that). Pro-life opposition to the bill was chiefly grounded in a desire for a comprehensive ban on using human embryos for research, and it would certainly have been better to handle that in a separate bill. But pro-lifers also critiqued the way in which the bill addressed human cloning, and suggested that it was inadequate. So, one pro-life commentator concluded that the "only" good thing in the bill is the ban on selling gametes and embryos.

     That is misleading. The ban on cloning is comprehensive, forbidding both the cloning of live-born babies (so-called "reproductive" cloning) and the use of cloned embryos for research (so-called "therapeutic" cloning). The language in which it does so is at least as strong as that contained in the Weldon/Brownback bill before the United States Congress. It also parallels that in the resolutions that have been considered by the United Nations General Assembly. Listen to the language of the bill:

     5. (1) No person shall knowingly

     (a) create a human clone by using any technique, or transplant a human clone into a human being or into any non-human life form or artificial device;

     ''human clone'' means an embryo that, as a result of the manipulation of human reproductive material or an in vitro embryo, contains a diploid set of chromosomes obtained from a single -- living or deceased -- human being, foetus or embryo.

     To those who have been immersed in the debates on Capitol Hill and in state capitols around the nation, the language here is strong and refreshingly honest. "Human clone" is actually defined as a cloned embryo. In the dishonest terms of the Hatch-Feinstein bill, "cloning" is defined as implantation. In the terrible language of the New Jersey law, "cloning" is defined as the live birth of a cloned embryo. Three cheers for the Canadians. They have joined Mexico, Germany, Norway, and a host of other countries in passing legislation that closely parallels the Weldon/Brownback bill. In Francea parallel law is close to completing its way through the parliamentary process, with support from the government, and we look forward to its final passage.

     We need to get this good news out, and to use it to show that the demand for a comprehensive cloning ban is not just coming from pro-life Republicans. It is coming from all sectors of society, from centers of conscience all across culture, from thinking people who want to ensure that the wonders of biotechnology sustain human dignity and do not subvert it. The international community is acting, nation by nation, and we can take courage from the fact that on the biotech agenda of the 21st century these nations are ahead of us.

Yours for ethical biotech,
Nigel M. de S. Cameron
Director, Council for Biotechnology Policy
Dean, Wilberforce Forum

By: Nigel M. de S. Camero
Source: Wilberforce Forum
Publish Date: April 28, 2004