LONDON, Dec 4, 00 (LSN.ca) – Canon Dr John Polkinghorne, a leading advisor to the Church of England and a member of the General Synod has submitted a briefing paper to the Church’s Board for Social Responsibility (BSR) saying that research on cloned human embryos is “morally acceptable.” While the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales condemned the proposal, Polkinghorne poked fun at the Catholic “absolute” position saying that while it must be given, “respectful attention, it is fair to say that it does not wholly correspond to actual practice. No one seems to suggest holding a funeral service for an embryo that failed to implant and was lost.” He said that reproductive cloning would be problematic but not cloning of human embryos for research.
Polkinghorne is chairman of the BSR Science and Medical Technology Committee. BSR chairman, the Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend Richard Harries, is considering approving the paper for release.
England’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children reported that in the late 1980s Polkinghorne drew up guidelines for abortionists on the use of foetal tissue in research.
See the coverage in the Daily Telegraph at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000579381554028&rtmo=r9b2a9hX&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/12/3/nclon03.html