Even if that is not possible, there is already hope that such engineered stem cells could be used to make skin for burns victims, or brain cells for those suffering from Parkinson's disease. Every day, thousands of early embryos are thrown away from fertility clinics because, to have any chance of success, many more eggs are fertilised than are in the end replaced in a potential mother. The new law allows these small groups of cells to be used in the hope of treating the sick, rather than simply being discarded. Radical improvements I would expect that the parents of those tiny pieces of material would feel happier that they are used in this way than simply seeing them as gone for ever. It is worth remembering that half a century ago, even transplants of the cornea of the eye from a corpse to a blind person were not allowed on ethical grounds.
Organ transplants are now a standard part of medicine.
My guess is that 50 years from now, we will look back in as much amazement at the days when therapeutic cloning was seen as unethical, as we now do at the time when the blind stayed blind because society was not willing to follow where science was leading them. The public belief that science acts in the interest of society is in crisis, according to a recent report of the House of Lords committee on Science and Society. And this finding accurately reflects the publication of the report by the Donaldson committee, which sanctions the first stage of human cloning. First, it has escaped public notice that the government has co-ownership of the patents required to exploit therapeutic cloning in the marketplace. Human beings should never be treated as a means to an end Kevin Dillon Secondly, that scientists are set to export their research elsewhere if the government refuses to legalise therapeutic cloning.