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VATICAN TELLS UNITED NATIONS 'THERAPEUTIC' CLONING IS WORSE THAN REPRODUCTIVE CLONING

Says "it involves human beings (embryos) who are created in order to be destroyed"

NEW YORK, November 20, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an address to the United Nations organization "On International Convention Against the Reproductive Cloning of Human Beings", Archbishop Renato Martino, the outgoing Vatican representative to the United Nations, spoke about both reproductive and therapeutic cloning.

While also condemning reproductive cloning, the archbishop noted that therapeutic cloning is "an even more serious offence against human dignity and the right to life, since it involves human beings (embryos) who are created in order to be destroyed." He said therapeutic cloning "must be" prohibited calling it an "exploitation of human beings, sought by certain scientific and industrial circles, and pushed forward by underlying economic interests."

Regarding reproductive cloning, the archbishop said that the Vatican's opposition "is not derived only from the risks of malformation or the death of the embryo as a result of predictable failures but first and foremost upon anthropological and ethical reasons." It is, he said, "based upon the generation of a child outside the act of personal love" which "excludes paternity and maternity."

"The act of cloning is a predetermined act which forces the image and likeness of the donor and is actually a form of imposing dominion over another human being which denies the human dignity of the child and makes him or her a slave to the will of others. The child would be seen as an object and a product of one's fancy rather than as a unique human being, equal in dignity to those who 'created' him or her. The practice of cloning would usurp the role of creator and would thus be seen as an offence before God."

In related news, the United Nations General Assembly yesterday approved a committee recommendation to delay consideration of the cloning treaty till next October. The process was deadlocked over banning all human cloning or allowing human cloning only when the embryonic humans would not be allowed to be born.

See related LifeSite coverage:
TREATY ON HOLD FOR A YEAR AS 30+ COUNTRIES PREFER BAN ON ALL HUMAN CLONING
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/nov/02110602.html

See the Vatican statement to the UN:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/documents/rc_seg-st_doc_2001...

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