Labour calls for State to ban human cloning

THE Government must act now to ban human cloning, Labour’s spokeswoman on health Liz McManus insisted yesterday.

With the rapid momentum that cloning experimentation had recently gained, doing nothing would create a dangerous legislative vacuum, she warned.

The Labour Party has tabled a private members’ bill banning outright human cloning that they hope will be debated by the Dáil at the earliest opportunity.

Their Human Reproduction Bill also prohibits using cloned embryos to produce stem cells for regenerative medicine.

It proposes that a person found guilty of human cloning be fined and/or imprisoned for up to 10 years.

The bill was tabled by the party’s spokeswoman on Agriculture and Food, Dr Mary Upton, a qualified industrial microbiologist, who lectured at University College Dublin before becoming a full-time politician.

Ms Upton said the bill was necessary with concern growing in the scientific community and among the general public at the absence of any legal framework on cloning.

Unproven human cloning claims by the Raelian-linked company, Clonaid, could not be dismissed or ignored, she warned.

While many countries had moved to introduce legislation to ban human cloning, there was no legislation to prevent scientists embarking on a similar project here.

“The Government cannot bury its head in the sand on the issue and pretend that Ireland will not be affected by the implications of scientific developments which has drastic and far-reaching implications for humans,” said Ms Upton.

Ms McManus said that after three years, there was still no sign of the report by the Commission on Assisted Human reproduction established by Health Minister Micheál Martin.

The commission, charged with the task of examining how the issues of assisted human reproduction might be addressed in policy and legislative terms, was only now beginning the consultation process, she said.

When establishing the commission, Mr Martin admitted there was no legislation dealing with cloning and since then had failed completely to take any constructive action despite alarming international developments, Ms Upton said.

“Labour believes that it would be unwise to await the commission’s report to pass simple legislation to ban human cloning in Ireland,” she said.

Last November the European Parliament voted for a worldwide ban on cloning. The commission is expected to come forward with a report on cloning by the end of February and to propose draft EU legislation by the end of the year.

In the US, legislation to ban human cloning has been reintroduced recently.

“Ireland must follow international legislative example,” Ms McManus declared.

Labour’s spokeswoman on Education and Science, Jan O’Sullivan said their bill was merely a small contribution to the debate on cloning and hoped it would generate a wider public discussion on what was a very important issue.