sue that their bodies might reject. They can have themselves cloned to produce perfect match tissue. This would do away with the powerful anti-rejection drugs needed to tame the immune systems of transplant patients. Some experts believe it may be possible one day to "grow" whole replacement organs in the laboratory. Likewise, "body repair kits" could be produced in which every newborn baby in the country has a supply of cloned cells in case a transplant is needed in later life. Possible cures for diseases would be any degenerative disease where one cell type has gone wrong. This includes Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Huntingdon's Chorea, diabetes and cancers. New muscle could also be produced to repair damaged hearts. Therapeutic cloning could eventually heal injuries such as burns. It would also end the long search for the right bone marrow donor in leukaemia cases, as perfect-match bone marrow could be created from a patient's own skin cells. Scientists estimate that 100m people could benefit worldwide. (Woodward 97) The embryo that was cloned, would be destroyed. However, scientists plan to remove cells before the embryos are 14 days old, stopping short of creating a cloned embryo that develops beyond a week. They hope this will circumvent ethical concerns about the creation of a cloned adult. (Bailey 97) The Catholic church objects to any research which involves the overproduction and then destruction of human embryos. It says any human embryo - including the small clump of cells produced for this research - is sacrosanct. Anti-abortion groups are suspicious that scientists want to develop therapeutic cloning for reproductive purposes. The pressure group, Life, has voiced fears that embryos would be cloned, implanted into a surrogate mother, allowed to develop for a full pregnancy, then killed for their hearts and other organs. Some argue that it is possible to remove so-called...
