Rome, Italy, Sep 7, 2007 / 08:32 am
The president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Bishop Elio Sgreccia denounced as a “monstrosity” the new norms approved this week in Great Britain by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which allow the creation of animal-human embryos for the purpose of extracting stem cells for use in the treatment of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.
Proponents of the new ruling held up a “support” survey of two thousand people who have no knowledge of the issue as evidence that the research should go forward.
With the newly granted permission to create hybrid embryos (part animal, part human) three teams of British scientists—one from King’s College London, one from the North East England Stem Cell Institute, and one led by Ian Wilmut, whose team cloned the sheep Dolly—will begin experiments to introduce human DNA into a cow egg in order to create embryos that would be 99.9 percent human and .01 percent animal.
Investigators argue that this macabre norm is needed because of the lack of human ovums for research. In response Bishop Sgreccia explained that up to now, international law prohibited this kind of genetic manipulation “because of the offense against human dignity” that it constitutes, “because of the risk of producing monsters” and “because of the morally high significance.”