Catholic Bishops Want Human Rights Afforded to Animal-Human Embryos

According to Reuters, Roman Catholic bishops are urging British parliament to afford human rights to animal-human embryos that were created for medical research. The embryos are known as "chimeras" after the mystical half-man, half-animal creatures.

Researchers believe that by studying these hybrid embryos they can understand them better. By understanding them better they can find cures for illnesses like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and even cystic fibrosis. As it stands now with a draft legislation to be debated in the British parliament this year, these hybrid embryos would have to be destroyed within 14 days. Also it would be illegal to implant these hybrid embryos into a woman's uterus.

According to the Telegraph, the draft Human Tissue and Embryo Bill is aimed to overhaul the laws surrounding fertility treatment. The Bill will include sections that cover test tube babies, embryo research and even abortion. Ministers are saying that the creation of animal-human embryos will be heavily regulated.

The Catholic bishops of England and Wales spoke on Tuesday with the parliamentary committee that is examining the legislation, that they want women to have the right to give birth to these animal-human hybrid embryos, which would be 99 percent human.

In Reuters' report, they quoted the bishops in their submission to the committee as saying," It should not be a crime to transfer them, or other human embryos, to the body of the woman providing the ovum, in cases where human ovum had been used to create them."

The bishops were also quoted as saying to the committee," Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so."

Because of a shortage of human eggs for research, scientists have pushed for approval on the hybrid embryos. Scientists believe that the bishops are misunderstanding the science involved.

Dr. Stephen Minger a stem cell researcher at Kings College in London spoke with Reuters on Wednesday stating," If we are using cow eggs, there is no woman involved. Using non-human eggs is really just a pragmatic way of accelerating the pace of research. And we think it is more ethically justified to use non-human eggs rather than ask women to donate for research that is still very much in its infancy."

The process would take eggs from cows or sheep and then strip them of their nuclear and species identity. Human cells would then be placed inside the empty egg. This would then create a stem cell line for research.

The bishops are standing by their opposition to creating embryos for the pure purpose of research. They do however want to minimize any harm to such a life once it is created.

Sources:
Simon Rabinovitch "Animal-human embryos need human rights, bishops say" Reuters
Url:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070627/sc_nm/britain_embryos_dc_3

Jonathan Petre "Chimera embryos have right to life, say bishops" Telegraph
Url:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/26/nchimera126.xml