New round in UK human clone battle

LONDON, England -- The UK's Court of Appeal has granted the government permission to challenge a controversial decision that it was claimed effectively wrecked legislation designed to regulate cloning.

Last November, the High Court ruled that an organism created by cell nuclear replacement (CNR) was not an embryo and therefore not covered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

The organism had been created using the same technique used to create Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep.

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The High Court ruling, in a challenge brought by anti-abortion group the Pro-Life Alliance, effectively meant that the authorities did not have the power to regulate human cloning.

In allowing the challenge, the Court of Appeal, on Friday, said it believed parliament would have intended the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act to cover CNR if the process had been known of at the time it was passed.

Allowing the appeal, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips, said: "I hold that an organism which is CNR (cloning) falls within the definition of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act."

He added: "The possible implications of CNR for human health are dramatic.

"It is essential to bring the creation and use of embryos under strict control for ethical reasons."

He said that as a result of the High Court ruling, it would not have been illegal for anyone in the UK to produce a human clone before the 2001 Act came into force.

He said this would have been "startling and alarming."

"These results are wholly at odds with the intention of Parliament when introducing the Act(in 1990)," he said.

But pro-life groups reacted angrily to the Court of Appeal's decision.

A spokesman for the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child told the Press Association: "The court has interpreted the law in an alarmingly elastic way so as to allow destructive research on human beings created through cloning.

"Such shifting of the goalposts is unacceptable. Extending the definition of an embryo in the Act is a matter for Parliament, not for the courts."

Bruno Quintavalle, director of Pro-Life Alliance, described the court's ruling as "outrageous" and he accused the judges of "riding roughshod" over the law.

Quintavalle told PA: "I think it is actually an outrageous judgment from a legal point of view and leaves the law in an unsatisfactory state.

"There is nothing to stop one-cell embryos being implanted in women. It appears judges can now re-write legislation, going beyond any limits which have been recognised before by the courts.

"We will be pursuing an appeal to the House of Lords on the basis that the Court of Appeal has usurped the functions of Parliament. We will also be pursuing it to ensure that this issue of cloning is looked at very carefully."

The BioIndustry Association, a trade group, welcomed Friday's ruling, saying CNR could play a vital role in developing treatments for illnesses such as Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, leukaemia, strokes and heart disease.