'Human cloning plain murder'

'Human cloning plain murder'

MANILA (AFP): Cloning of human embryos to harvest cells for the production of body parts should be outlawed as murder, Philippine bishops said on Tuesday in their first public statement on the issue.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines said it was reacting to a January legislation passed in Britain allowing scientists there to clone human embryos for medical purposes and then cull them 14 days after fertilization.

Scientists argued that at this stage, the embryo was mainly a cluster of stem cells that could be encouraged to grow into any type of tissue.

The cells, once developed, could then be transplanted into humans to replace sick or damaged tissue.

The Filipino bishops said destroying an embryo would be tantamount to "plain murder," stressing that this could not be "morally permissible."