'Designer babies' for spare parts

No less an august body than Britain's highest law court recently ruled that the making of "designer babies" is now legal, thus going against accepted ethical thinking in Europe that such procedures should be banned.

Another curious issue that arises as a result of the Law Lords' decision is to emphasise further the divergence between British and European thinking on ethical issues. Uniquely among European states, Britain allows the creation of embryos for scientific experimentation and disallows the use of stored embryo resulting from in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures. Presumably this is the result of a utilitarian frame of mind to be found in these northern islanders, with its emphasis on autonomy and individual rights.

The recently discovered technique of cloning makes it possible to create an identical twin who can be used to supply the required material for transplantation.

For instance, bone marrow may be required to replace diseased marrow in patients with leukaemia or other blood disorders such as the inherited condition known as thalassaemia. The attraction of this procedure is that such marrow is identical to the patient's own and therefore there is no danger of rejection and hence no need for complex drug therapy with its complications and dangers.

One curious fact about this whole controversy is that, faced with a problem of a severely sick child, many would have no qualms about the concept of creating a baby through cloning to enable donation of life-giving treatment to another member of the family. Ask any group of people - and I have done this a number of times with sixth-year students - whether they agree with such a practice and nine out of 10 will say they see no ethical or moral problem involved. The gut feeling is that when such a procedure is done for the good of a severely sick patient, it should be acceptable.

On the other hand, the Council of Europe has made it clear on a number of occasions, and particularly through its Protocol on Cloning, that such a procedure is ethically unacceptable. How is it that there is such a chasm between considered ethical opinion and gut feelings in this matter?

The main arguments against cloning derive from the concepts of autonomy and identity of the individual. Every individual is considered an entity in its own right and no human being should be conceived as a means to any particular aim, however noble. Creating an infant with the primary aim of providing material for transplantation is considered to go against this basic principle and is therefore not acceptable.

The biggest worry, of course, is that there is no reason to believe that such a technique, if and when it becomes widely acceptable, will be limited to serious disorders. Families may want their next child to be of a particular sex, constructed for maximum intelligence, athletic performance or other traits which can be built into the new creation. Many are worried about the scientist's ability to play God, not knowing what the possible outcome could be.

In the atmosphere concerning ethical issues that prevails in Malta, one hopes that serious discussion will enlighten and not further confuse the very basic issues involved.