Chimera embryos have right to life, say bishops

Embryonic stem cells explained
Human-animal hybrid embryos conceived in the laboratory - so-called chimeras - should be regarded as human and their mothers should be allowed to give birth to them, the Roman Catholic Church said yesterday.

Under draft Government legislation to be debated by Parliament later this year, scientists will be given permission for the first time to create such embryos for research as long as they destroy them within two weeks.

 
But the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, in a submission to the Parliamentary joint committee scrutinising the draft legislation, said that the genetic mothers of chimeras should be able to raise them as their own children if they wished.

The bishops said that they did not see why these interspecies embryos should be treated any differently than others.

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