TEXT OF PRESS RELEASE; 22 JUNE 98
"What's Wrong With Cloning? You Decide"
Public Debate led by Sixth Form Students
Professor Colin Blakemore, FRS, President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and Professor of Physiology at Oxford University predicted that the reproductive cloning of a human being could become a reality in 5 to 10 years even though research in this area is not presently permitted.
Questioned by a panel of sixth form students from four Bristol Schools as part of the St Mary Redcliffe "Journey into Science" Public Debate on Cloning, Professor Alastair Campbell, Director of Bristol University's new Centre for Ethics in Medicine, with whom Professor Blakemore shared the stage, stated that he felt research on human reproductive cloning should be banned permanently. He felt that reproductive cloning carries the danger of regarding people as products.
A cloned child would not be the replica some imagine and would be a unique individual in his or her own right, because a person is far more than their genes. Both speakers pointed out that much public interest and concern is based on the misconception that cloning could reproduce the cloned individual's behaviour, personality, ability and talent. Professor Blakemore felt that a cloned child could be just as loved by an infertile family as a child of natural birth.
Overall, the student panel felt apprehensive about the prospects of human reproductive cloning although there was also a feeling of ultimate inevitability. Some of this was fear of the new, but also the need for much more grass roots public debate of the kind which Journey into Science has inspired. The positive medical prospects of therapeutic cloning of tissues for medical purposes was viewed much more positively.
The public debate which took place in St Mary Redcliffe Church on Saturday 20 June was led by a nine-member sixth form student panel from St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School, Bristol Cathedral School, Bristol Grammar School and Clifton College.
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