28 February 2002

EMBRYONIC RESEARCH IS DEEPLY UNETHICAL DECLARES EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE AND CARE IN JOINT STATEMENT

Using cloned human embryos for stem cell research is deeply unethical and opens up a “dangerous pathway” to reproductive cloning, warns the Evangelical Alliance and CARE in a joint statement today.

Permitting research on human embryos also flies in the face of world opinion and could isolate the UK as an international pariah on cloning issues.

“It would appear that commercial self-interest has succeeded in the face of widespread disquiet” said Don Horrocks, Alliance Head of Public Affairs, commenting on the report by the House of Lords Stem Cell Research Committee which gives the green light to embryonic research. “A dangerous pathway now opens up before us.”

Roger Smith, Head of Public Policy at CARE, said: “This is a triumph for utilitarian ethics when there is so much evidence that using adult stem cells in the treatment of some diseases will bring at least as much, and possibly even more, benefit than research using human embryos.

I am saddened for the number of human lives that will be sacrificed in the name of medical research,” he added.

Ends Media enquiries:

NOTES TO EDITORS: The Evangelical Alliance UK was founded in 1846 and today represents over one million Christians in 30 denominations. The Evangelical Alliance was a founding member of the World Evangelical Fellowship, which now has 120 member Alliances, together representing 200 million evangelicals worldwide.

An evangelical is someone who believes that Jesus is both God and man; that the Bible is the ultimate authority in all that it addresses; and that the traditional beliefs of the Church such as the physical resurrection of Jesus are true. An evangelical owns a commitment to Christ as their personal saviour and a desire to live out that faith in the community.

CARE has worked as a thinktank on bioethics for many years. Its submission to the House of Lords Select Committee enquiry is at http://www.CARE.org.uk/resource/docs/response_stem.htm

CARE is one of the partners in the Centre of Bioethics and Public Policy which brings a Judaeo-Christian Hippocratic tradition to bear on a range of contemporary issues.

Press Department Evangelical Alliance email: http://www.eauk.org