c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ About 200 scientists, ethicists and theologians gathered here Wednesday (June 25) to hear a panel discussion on the ethical implications surrounding recent developments in cloning.

In an afternoon session of the one-day forum at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest federation of scientific and engineering societies, a five-member panel agreed with recent recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC), which concluded”that at this time it is morally unacceptable for anyone in the public or private sector, whether in a research or clinical setting, to attempt to create a child using somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning.” In February, following the successful cloning of an adult sheep by scientist Ian Wilmut of Scotland’s Roslin Institute, the NBAC responded to a request from President Clinton that the broad implications of the new technology be examined.

The NBAC’s recommendation included a”sunset clause,”which stipulates that Congress revisit the issue again in five years, after cloning is better understood.

But panel members disagreed on exactly why society is resistant to the concept of cloning human beings.

Theologian Ted Peters of the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., said society’s perceived”threat to individuality”presented by human cloning is not a compelling enough argument to bar its use.

Cloned individuals would be no different biologically from twins, said Peters, who described the”misconception”that cloned humans would not be individuals as the”religious yuck factor.””Individual identity is not at stake, not threatened,”Peters said later in an interview.”Yet there’s a religious and ethical hysteria saying this is at stake.” Rabbi Moshe D. Tendler of New York’s Yeshiva College, an authority on medical ethics and Jewish law, disagreed with Peters'”yuck factor,”attributing society’s repudiation of cloning instead to a legacy of scientific abuse, such as eugenics experiments by the Nazis and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments.

Tendler said he believes there are two cases in which cloning could be a valuable technology.

The first is the curing of disease, said Tendler, sharing Wilmut’s hope his research will some day lead to a cure for cystic fibrosis. Scientists also believe cloning could advance cancer and Parkinson’s disease research.

Secondly, Tendler said cloning could be used to preserve a genetic line, if a sterile man had lost his entire family in the Holocaust, for example.

Another major concern expressed by the panel was one centering on the social status of those involved in the cloning process _ would the cell donor be the parent, the sibling or the owner of the cloned individual?”It’s not at all a foregone conclusion that the person who donated the nucleus would be the parent,”said Pilar Ossorio, director of the genetics division of the Ethics Institute of the American Medical Association.

Tendler believes”society has failed us”when it comes to educating the public and regulating reproductive technologies.”It’s not the sheep, it’s that we behave like sheep,”he said.”There’s nothing yucky about cloning,”he added.”It’s `I don’t trust you. I fear giving you mastery over me.'” Wilmut, one of the experts attending the AAAS conference, said although cloning presents an unprecedented opportunity to understand diseases and advance agriculture, the ethical concerns surrounding the science should be paramount.”This technique,”he said,”should not be used to produce an individual who is a copy of a person who’s already here.” MJP END LEBOWITZ