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The important point here is that no act of fertilisation is involved and it is on this point that the arguments were made. The original Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was amended in 2000 so that cloned embryos were covered, but the definition of an embryo, that is a fertilised egg, was not altered. Since a cloned embryo has not undergone fertilisation it is not in fact covered by the Act. So although a contradiction in terms, for the purpose of the law a cloned embryo is not an embryo. The outcome of this was that the High Court decided that the licensing arrangements for embryo cloning did not hold for implantation of cloned embryos. All of a sudden it became apparent that producing an infant from a cloned adult cell was not ruled out. This legislative anomaly was that it should never have been exposed by a court ruling; it should have been dealt with by Parliament long ago. When Dolly the sheep was born in 1997 it was immediately obvious that sex may not be the only way to produce new offspring. In the US, the government quickly took this on board and revised its own definition of an embryo. In the UK, the committee of MPs dealing with science and technology warned the government of the potential problems this definition of an embryo might cause. On Friday, 18 January 2002, the Master of Rolls, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, sitting with two other judges, said that an embryo created by cloning did fall within the legal definition of an embryo, even though no fertilisation had taken place. This finally brought human cloning in the UK for medical research into the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Whether you agree or disagree with the principles involved there are many questions which are raised. Broadly speaking, there are two types of cloning in use here. One is cloning fertilised embryo cells and the other is cloning of other cells. But what is the difference? If nature can, and does, produce complete individuals from a single cell, then at what point do we say that cloning a cell is tantamount to usurping the position of nature. But it is the very nature of human curiosity to try to understand the world about us, including how it is that we cannot artificially create a viable organism. Put bluntly, if it happens in nature, why can’t we do it? This debate is complicated because identical twins can be seen as clones of each other. Although semantic debates in themselves can be interesting it would at this stage be worth considering what we mean by ‘clone’ and why it results in some very specific grammar. A clone is any group of cells, which includes a complete organism, which derives from a single progenitor cell. So Dolly the sheep is a clone of her mother, cloned from a cell of her mother. Identical twins are clones of each other from an original ovum. So not only do we clone by accident, in the case of identical twins, but for at least the last half century we have been cloning human cells deliberately and this deliberate cloning has been done in the quest for methods of prenatal diagnostics. When foetal cells are removed so that they can be tested for large scale genetic defects, such as Down’s syndrome and other conditions not compatible with life, the cells are routinely grown before the testing is carried out. Each group of cells is a clone of the first one which started dividing, each clone has the entire genetic content of the foetus from which it originated, but no one would suggest that there is sentience or soul present. Many of the samples of cloned cells are then frozen
DOI link for The important point here is that no act of fertilisation is involved and it is on this point that the arguments were made. The original Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was amended in 2000 so that cloned embryos were covered, but the definition of an embryo, that is a fertilised egg, was not altered. Since a cloned embryo has not undergone fertilisation it is not in fact covered by the Act. So although a contradiction in terms, for the purpose of the law a cloned embryo is not an embryo. The outcome of this was that the High Court decided that the licensing arrangements for embryo cloning did not hold for implantation of cloned embryos. All of a sudden it became apparent that producing an infant from a cloned adult cell was not ruled out. This legislative anomaly was that it should never have been exposed by a court ruling; it should have been dealt with by Parliament long ago. When Dolly the sheep was born in 1997 it was immediately obvious that sex may not be the only way to produce new offspring. In the US, the government quickly took this on board and revised its own definition of an embryo. In the UK, the committee of MPs dealing with science and technology warned the government of the potential problems this definition of an embryo might cause. On Friday, 18 January 2002, the Master of Rolls, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, sitting with two other judges, said that an embryo created by cloning did fall within the legal definition of an embryo, even though no fertilisation had taken place. This finally brought human cloning in the UK for medical research into the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Whether you agree or disagree with the principles involved there are many questions which are raised. Broadly speaking, there are two types of cloning in use here. One is cloning fertilised embryo cells and the other is cloning of other cells. But what is the difference? If nature can, and does, produce complete individuals from a single cell, then at what point do we say that cloning a cell is tantamount to usurping the position of nature. But it is the very nature of human curiosity to try to understand the world about us, including how it is that we cannot artificially create a viable organism. Put bluntly, if it happens in nature, why can’t we do it? This debate is complicated because identical twins can be seen as clones of each other. Although semantic debates in themselves can be interesting it would at this stage be worth considering what we mean by ‘clone’ and why it results in some very specific grammar. A clone is any group of cells, which includes a complete organism, which derives from a single progenitor cell. So Dolly the sheep is a clone of her mother, cloned from a cell of her mother. Identical twins are clones of each other from an original ovum. So not only do we clone by accident, in the case of identical twins, but for at least the last half century we have been cloning human cells deliberately and this deliberate cloning has been done in the quest for methods of prenatal diagnostics. When foetal cells are removed so that they can be tested for large scale genetic defects, such as Down’s syndrome and other conditions not compatible with life, the cells are routinely grown before the testing is carried out. Each group of cells is a clone of the first one which started dividing, each clone has the entire genetic content of the foetus from which it originated, but no one would suggest that there is sentience or soul present. Many of the samples of cloned cells are then frozen
The important point here is that no act of fertilisation is involved and it is on this point that the arguments were made. The original Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was amended in 2000 so that cloned embryos were covered, but the definition of an embryo, that is a fertilised egg, was not altered. Since a cloned embryo has not undergone fertilisation it is not in fact covered by the Act. So although a contradiction in terms, for the purpose of the law a cloned embryo is not an embryo. The outcome of this was that the High Court decided that the licensing arrangements for embryo cloning did not hold for implantation of cloned embryos. All of a sudden it became apparent that producing an infant from a cloned adult cell was not ruled out. This legislative anomaly was that it should never have been exposed by a court ruling; it should have been dealt with by Parliament long ago. When Dolly the sheep was born in 1997 it was immediately obvious that sex may not be the only way to produce new offspring. In the US, the government quickly took this on board and revised its own definition of an embryo. In the UK, the committee of MPs dealing with science and technology warned the government of the potential problems this definition of an embryo might cause. On Friday, 18 January 2002, the Master of Rolls, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, sitting with two other judges, said that an embryo created by cloning did fall within the legal definition of an embryo, even though no fertilisation had taken place. This finally brought human cloning in the UK for medical research into the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Whether you agree or disagree with the principles involved there are many questions which are raised. Broadly speaking, there are two types of cloning in use here. One is cloning fertilised embryo cells and the other is cloning of other cells. But what is the difference? If nature can, and does, produce complete individuals from a single cell, then at what point do we say that cloning a cell is tantamount to usurping the position of nature. But it is the very nature of human curiosity to try to understand the world about us, including how it is that we cannot artificially create a viable organism. Put bluntly, if it happens in nature, why can’t we do it? This debate is complicated because identical twins can be seen as clones of each other. Although semantic debates in themselves can be interesting it would at this stage be worth considering what we mean by ‘clone’ and why it results in some very specific grammar. A clone is any group of cells, which includes a complete organism, which derives from a single progenitor cell. So Dolly the sheep is a clone of her mother, cloned from a cell of her mother. Identical twins are clones of each other from an original ovum. So not only do we clone by accident, in the case of identical twins, but for at least the last half century we have been cloning human cells deliberately and this deliberate cloning has been done in the quest for methods of prenatal diagnostics. When foetal cells are removed so that they can be tested for large scale genetic defects, such as Down’s syndrome and other conditions not compatible with life, the cells are routinely grown before the testing is carried out. Each group of cells is a clone of the first one which started dividing, each clone has the entire genetic content of the foetus from which it originated, but no one would suggest that there is sentience or soul present. Many of the samples of cloned cells are then frozen
ABSTRACT