ABSTRACT
Peter Brinsden, the medical director of the Bourn Hall Clinic, which specialises in in vitro fertilization treatment, was reported as saying: ‘Reproductive cloning for ethically approved indications would be acceptable if properly explained’. Authors have described two kinds of cloning: reproductive cloning, in which a human being is created from one ‘parent’ and subsequently born, and therapeutic cloning, the purpose of which is regenerative therapy. Such therapy would use material taken from human embryos as therapeutic products in the treatment of certain illnesses. If the research is successful thousands or millions of human embryos will be created and destroyed in order to produce medical products. Human embryos would be grown in laboratories to the age of fourteen days and mined for their stem cells. Australian national guidelines prevent scientists from creating embryo stem cells for clinical purposes though the matter is under review by a parliamentary enquiry.
