Doctors have been warned in new ethical guidelines that they will be found guilty of professional misconduct if they create new forms of life for experimental purposes.
The guidance from the Medical Council, which essentially outlaws human cloning, also warns that the deliberate and intentional destruction of in-vitro human life already formed would also constitute professional misconduct.
However, in a significant move already reported by The Irish Times, the guidelines state that couples who are left with spare frozen embryos as a result of IVF treatments may now consider donating them to infertile couples.
The guidelines say: "If couples have validly decided they do not wish to make use of their own fertilised ova, the potential for voluntary donation to other recipients may be considered." And the guidelines, which have been reviewed for the first time in five years, refer to genetic therapy for the first time.
They state that genetic testing may be of benefit in diagnosing an illness or predicting its development. But they warn doctors that individuals who undergo such testing should be counselled on the consequences of their actions and that testing should not be done without informed consent.
The guide also states that it is ethical to use gene therapy "to modify the genome of human somatic cells provided that the risk is not disproportionate to the benefit".
However, stem cells are not referred to. That was an issue that had yet to be debated fully by society, politicians and the profession, the Medical Council's president, Prof Gerard Bury, said, at the publication of the guidelines in Dublin yesterday.