Cloningissuescontinuetomultip y

by Andrea Koch assistant copy editor

Ethical and legal issues about the recently discovered technique of cloning are being researched under orders by President Clinton.

On Monday, Feb. 24, Clinton sought the group to research issues such as the moral principles and legality of cloning.

The i.5-member group, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, met in the Watergate Hotel in Washington. They have 90 days to complete their tasks designated by the president.

The recent cloning of Dolly the sheep in Scotland by Dr. Ian Wilmut and a rhesus monkey in Oregon are prompting the team to discover the consequences of cloning. ls it legal? Is it ethical? "Should'' we as opposed to '·could" we?

"lt is going to raise a multi- tude of ethical and moral questions," Dr. Margaret McGuinness. associate professor and chair of religious studies. said. 'They have not even begun to scratch the surface of this issue."

Most theologians who have spoke out about cloning agree • with McGuinness.

The commission was formed in October 1995, but did not meet until exactly a year later. Originally, the group was to look into the ethics of using human subjects for medical research.

All of a sudden, cloning explodes, and the president looks desperately for people he can turn to for help and advice," Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said.

Religious leaders spoke to the group about theological questions that cloning raised.

"There are a lot of ramifica- tions to really explore what it is all going to mean," McGuinness said.

Dr. Leonard '-Jarman Primiano, assistant professor of religious studies who also teaches a course on contemporary moral problems, said. "It is important to remember that the Roman Catholic Church, as an institution. has questioned the morality of human/biological engineering, going so far as to publish a document on the subject in March 1987."

Primiano said the document, "Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and in the Dignity of Procreation: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day," opposes medical interference in human procreation.

The Catholic Church has to be given credit for taking the lead in questioning the morality of such unregulated scientific experimentation.

Four ethicists spoke and tion called female circumcision. It is common across Africa and it involves a very painful partial or total removal of external female genital organs, or their mutilation.

0 4/14 half saw possible situations which could be used, and the other two flatly prohibited the idea.

Plane crash kills four Americans.

Off of a tiny island in the Bahamas, a small plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean killing the only four Americans on board, including three private pilots.

The Beechcraft 36 crashed into a rocky shoal about 25 yards off Crooked Island, about 250 miles southeast of Nassau. The plane was completely destroyed.

The cause of the crash was unknown, but the weather was cloudy and winds were "choppy" when the plane went into the Atlantic.

"Two of me would make the world a better place:· first-year student Dennis Finocchairo said.

·'It is a frightening prospect:' according to junior religious studies major Lisa Jacinto. "If we begin with animals, who knows where ~1e can go next."

Humans?

Anne Kruse, chairperson of biology, does not approve of human cloning. However, she does support the cloning of animals.

"I do not know if human cloning is possible scientifically," Kruse said.

According to Kruse. human cloning has not been done yet, but before it does, "we need more research.''

"Anything is possible with technology today," Kruse said.

1997-1998 S.G.1l. EXECU'l'l\ 7E HftAlll)

President

Hollie Havens

Vice President

Lisa Mininno

Academic Board Chair

Felicia Miccoli

CAP Board Chair

Angela Palazzone Treasurer

Jasmine .Paulino

Corresponding Secretary

Stacey Caiazzo

Recording Secretary

Michele McDevitt

Parliamentarian

Tamika Warner