A team of renegade scientists has announced plans to begin experiments that could lead to the world's first human clone. The group, led by Prof Severino Antinori, has dismissed moral, ethical and scientific objections and is determined to install a cloned embryo in a female volunteer before the end of the year.
Many in Ireland tut-tut these rogue scientists, assuming their nightmarish undertaking couldn't happen here - but they are wrong. There is nothing to prevent Prof Antinori setting up shop in Dublin and creating human clones. There are no laws to block cloning and the constitutional protections for the unborn would probably be insufficient to prevent cloning from happening here, according to Dr Mary Upton TD, a scientist and the Labour Party's spokeswoman on consumer affairs.
"If it can happen in a laboratory in Scotland and in a laboratory in London, why can't it happen in a laboratory here?" she asked. "You only need one or two dissident scientists to progress it."
Many countries have moved to ban human cloning. Germany blocks all embryo research and any attempt to clone a human would automatically be outlawed. Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Australia and most other European countries also ban cloning.
No federal law exists in the US yet, but last week the House of Representatives passed the Human Cloning Prohibition Bill with a substantial majority. It now awaits passage through the Senate. Guidelines on cloning are in place in Argentina, Canada, the Czech Republic and several other countries. Britain requires that any group pursuing embryo research must first gain a licence and its Human Fertilisation and Embryology Agency, which oversees this research area, has made it clear it will not license the cloning of a human being.
The British government stated its intention last year, however, to bring forward legislation that specifically bans cloning for reproductive purposes. It would make it an offence to implant a cloned embryo in a womb in order to grow a human being. The law would, however, allow scientists to clone human embryos in support of stem-cell research.
Ireland lacks this type of legislative or regulatory control in embryo research and cloning. The enabling technology has galloped ahead of our legislators, leaving Ireland open to exploitation by those determined to bring cloning into practice.
An effort was made back in 1999 to put controls into place when Senator Mary Henry introduced a Private Member's Bill. It proposed a comprehensive register of clinics where reproductive medicine was practised, including details of all services provided.
She said this would have allowed the Minister for Health to issue regulations to control the availability of services. Cloning techniques could have been banned without further legislation, allowing the controls to keep pace with the developing technology. "If we had started then we would have been well along the way now, but Fianna Fail opposed it," Dr Henry said.
This leaves but one bulwark to protect against unethical embryo research - guidelines set by the Medical Council. However, the guidelines offer little more than a fig leaf.
The council is responsible for setting the ethical framework for medical practice in this State. Its Medical Guidelines 1998 includes a section on reproductive medicine and paragraph 26.1 is relevant in the area of human cloning.
It states: "The creation of new forms of life for experimental purposes or the deliberate and intentional destruction of human life already formed is professional misconduct." The following paragraph, 26.2, limits the manipulation of sperm or eggs to the "improvement of health".
It adds: "However, if the intention is not so directed or is the creation of embryos for experimental purposes, it would be professional misconduct."
Doctors who practise medicine outside the ethical limits are open to sanctions imposed by the council, including losing their licence to practise in this State.
The guidelines would seem to afford some protection, but this is not so, according to Prof Andrew Green, director of the National Centre for Medical Genetics at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin. The guidelines affect only doctors who are registered with the council.
Dr Henry also believes the council is not in a position to protect against cloning activity. "What we are constantly relying on is governance by the Medical Council," she said, but reproductive medicine practitioners did not have to be medical doctors. Also, the techniques employed in cloning were far removed from conventional fertility treatments.
The Government set up a Commission on Assisted Human Reproduction early last year, and this body will report on all aspects of the issue, including cloning. It has no timetable for reporting, however.
One final defence against the cloners might be the constitutional amendment which protects the unborn. Article 40, paragraph 3.3 says: "The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right."
Perversely, this protection might some time in the near future be invoked to protect the life of an unborn clone. The amendment does not differentiate between the unborn when conceived naturally, by in vitro fertilisation or any other technique. If the creation of a clone cannot be prevented by legislation, then the unborn clone would immediately enjoy all the protections afforded by the Constitution.