Is Therapeutic Cloning Legal in Canada

Animal cloning also raises ethical concerns. In the United States, there are companies that clone your pet!4 You can actually pay a company $50,000 to get a version identical to your dog`s DNA. Secondly, with regard to hereditary genetic modifications, the therapeutic need would be the main reason for germline therapy. In fact, the main goal of this experimental treatment is to relieve human suffering and disease by curing disorders for which the available therapies are not satisfactory. However, there appears to be a high risk that germline modification techniques used for therapeutic purposes could also be used for breeding and eugenic purposes.36 This could lead to the development of harmful notions of normalcy that are clearly undesirable and contradict the ethical tradition of medicine and the values of our society. For example, germline therapy could be used to remove genes considered harmful from the human gene pool. However, we do not believe that this hypothetical future prospect is a sufficient reason for a complete ban. Again, a comprehensive legal framework combined with strong monitoring and control mechanisms could be an appropriate means of preventing eugenic applications while allowing for the necessary legislative flexibility. Janet Rossant: Reproductive cloning would take that embryo and bring it back so you could give birth to a baby.

The announcement came with a flood of ethical and legal questions, including: Is cloning allowed? Are cloning laws constitutional? I have to tell you that the things that have annoyed me so far in this series of hearings have more to do with what is happening in the field of in vitro fertilization for reproductive purposes and all the adults involved in it than the sponsoring parents, the donors, perhaps the surrogate, et cetera. What you are telling me this morning is that through therapeutic cloning, we could obtain embryos with a single donor, the egg donor. It`s true? And then the same egg donor could have a cell removed from another part of the body to be injected into the egg, so now we only have one adult who is the source of that embryo. It`s true? In its December report,5 Canada`s Standing Committee on Health (SCH) found that the potential adverse effects of reproductive cloning on children were sufficient reason to prohibit this technique.5 The Committee added that therapeutic cloning should also be banned, as it is dangerous and commercializes the embryo. But do you think that even with the therapeutic cloning model of embryonic stem cell generation, we could end up in this whole commodification problem? In this brief statement, however, I will use the example of cloning technology to highlight what I consider to be the weakest aspects of the proposal. In particular, I will talk about three things: why I do not believe that the criminal law is the right way to go; the importance of scientifically accurate justifications for prohibitions; Finally, I would like to propose an alternative model to the committee. 5Sarah Schmidt, « Canadians Leery of Cloned Animals, » Canada.com (October 5, 2010), online: . I would therefore like to look at the technical aspects of cloning in mammals, including humans, and some of the scientific and safety issues that flow from it. I will also look at the intersection between stem cell research and cloning, which are often confused in public perception. I will try to show why they are put together and where they can be separated. There is a strong scientific consensus that cloning technology applied to animals is not safe for humans.

This is a security issue independent of ethical concerns. There are no scientists in the field who believe this is currently applicable to humans. It is a very strong statement on my part to say that reproductive cloning to create living human beings is dangerous and should not happen. Dr. Rossant is not as enthusiastic about therapeutic cloning right now, but she wants Canadian scientists to have the right to work with embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells at the same time, probably in the hope that we can train adult stem cells, or whatever you want to call it, to behave the way embryonic stem cells work. Reproductive cloning is clearly prohibited by the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. A human clone is defined in section 3 as « an embryo containing a set of diploid chromosomes obtained from a single human, fetus or embryo alive or deceased as a result of the manipulation of human reproductive material or an in vitro embryo. » Judy Sgro: In our legislation, we talk about banning therapeutic cloning. Are we harming ourselves vis-à-vis the scientific community by limiting future medical applications? All of this is, I must admit, a little scary for many of us as we learn about it. I have read much of what Professor Caulfield has read and written, and we are talking about not putting it in the hands of Parliament. For many of us, it is much easier to adopt the attitude that cloning is really very scary and scary, but if someone else wants to do it, that`s okay.

But at some point, someone has to take responsibility for those decisions. Dr. Jeffrey Nisker, co-chair of the committee that advised Rock on the legislation, says the likelihood of humans being cloned in Canada in the near future is low. « We`ve searched all the labs and people say they don`t, » says Nisker, a professor of obstetrics at the University of Western Ontario. « I don`t think that`s ever going to happen in Canada. » A 2010 study by Ipsos Reid for Agriculture Canada showed that more than half of Canadians thought animal cloning was unacceptable.5 Only 16% thought animal cloning was tolerable. I think things in this area are complicated by the fact that there is still no agreement on the appropriateness of many of the proposed bans. As stated in several reports of the Legal Committees, criminal law should be reserved for areas where there is a high degree of social consensus. One of the background papers accompanying the proposal in May suggested that « there is broad consensus that activities that would be prohibited under the proposed legislation are not acceptable in Canada. » This is simply not true. In fact, there is still much international and national debate about many prohibited activities, including the appropriateness of creating embryos for research purposes — yes, these are controversial areas — germline therapy and, in particular, for the purposes of today`s therapeutic cloning. I am not saying that I agree with these technologies, that they should necessarily move forward, but rather that there is simply no consensus. [7] David Dias, « Bestiality requires penetration: SCC » (June 9, 2016), Legal Feeds (blog), online: Canada passed legislation last week banning human cloning, but allowing research using stem cells from embryos – research that scientists hope will lead to therapies for many of the worst human diseases.

The Chairman: I would like another clarification. If I remember correctly, Mr Cibelli does not want therapeutic cloning to be banned. It`s true? But the success rate is very low. This varies from study to study, but probably about 1% to 5% of the transferred embryos pass through and produce live offspring. That is a very low success rate. In comparison, in vitro fertilization approaches today generate a success rate of about 30% to 40% in humans. So it`s very inefficient. This means that many embryos are lost along the way. So cloning doesn`t work well.

We believe that the Canadian government and the Standing Committee on Health, when they strongly oppose therapeutic cloning, are being too rigid without providing sufficient reasons for their position. Their fear of abusive, dangerous and dangerous use of cloning techniques and their need to find a political compromise had led them to a total ban on therapeutic cloning, rather than to the creation of a casuistic legal framework allowing for strict but adaptable standards. We believe that the latter approach would be more suited to therapeutic cloning. In therapeutic cloning by somatic nuclear transfer, the embryo created is not implanted in a woman`s uterus and does not have to develop further. The appeal of embryonic stem cell production lies in the fact that these new cells are compatible with the cells of the nucleus donor, which allows for a very successful transplant. It is not enough to argue that it would be wrong to allow the creation of research embryos because it « instrumentalizes » human life and treats people as if they were objects (Health Canada, 4 p. 5).

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