Diocese of Wilmington seeks to stop state cloning bill

Published: 2003-12-08

WILMINGTON, Del. (CNS) -- The Diocese of Wilmington is launching a major grass-roots effort to enlist Delaware residents to defeat a state bill that would permit the cloning of human embryos for use in biomedical and agricultural research. In coming weeks, notices about the bill and requests for letters to state representatives will appear in parish bulletins, and the Knights of Columbus will disseminate information throughout the state. The legislation would prohibit reproductive use of cloned human embryos, barring the "creation of a human child" by the implantation of a cloned human embryo into a woman for "subsequent birth." But the church objects to the bill because it would allow for the embryos -- which the church considers human beings -- to be cloned in a laboratory and kept until scientists wanted to destroy them to extract their stem cells for research. The Cloning Prohibition and Research Protection Act passed the Delaware Senate last June and is scheduled for public hearing Jan. 14.

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