'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."