Elsevier

The Lancet

Volume 364, Issue 9429, 10–16 July 2004, Pages 209-214
The Lancet

Public Policy
International policy failures: cloning and stem-cell research

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(04)16637-3Get rights and content

Summary

In late 2003, two international bodies were unable to resolve disagreements that involved bioethical issues. First, the United Nations General Assembly failed to pass a treaty on reproductive cloning because of insistence by some countries that the treaty include a ban on cloning for research. In view of the importance of enacting prohibition of reproductive cloning, the two issues should be separated and each argued on its own merits. Relevant objections to separation of the two issues can be refuted. Second, the European Union (EU) failed to agree on conditions for funding stem-cell research because of the diversity of views and policies of the countries of the EU. Because a stalemate was reached, funding decisions in the next programme cycle will be made on an ad hoc basis. Scientists will not have information they need to plan research programmes, suggesting that clear guidelines, even if restrictive, are preferable to vague unpublicised criteria.

Section snippets

Reproductive cloning

Currently, the international community agrees that human cloning for reproductive reasons should not be attempted. The rationale cites safety considerations in view of the many difficulties and defects reported in the cloning of animals.2 This argument, which lends support to at least a temporary ban on reproductive cloning, is almost universally accepted by both scientists and ethicists.

A different justification for prohibition of reproductive cloning states that to attempt to produce a

Objections to separation of cloning issues

Some examples of legislation that separate reproductive cloning from cloning for research prudently draw the line at the point of embryo transfer. In the UK the law states that “a person who places in a woman a human embryo which has been created otherwise than by fertilisation is guilty of an offence”.4 Setting the legal limit at the point of transfer eliminates one of the more striking objections to allowing research cloning while ruling out reproductive cloning: the objection that if a

Funding controversial research

When the law is silent on a specific practice, individuals can assume the procedure is permitted but not necessarily supported at the policy level. However, when public policy provides funding for particular types of research then it seems to be approving that work. Citizens who object to their taxes paying for research that they judge immoral may legitimately raise concerns.

In the USA, laws at the federal level are generally silent about embryo, stem-cell, and cloning research. When federal

Importance of public funding

When a country or group of countries makes a decision on the funding of research it is identifying activities that it wishes to encourage. Individual countries and the EU have decided to fund biomedical investigations to promote advances in science and medicine that might save lives and contribute to quality of life. The basic work that is needed for scientific progress is generally not of interest to private corporations or investors since prospects for a return on investment are theoretical

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