Vatican says embryo cloning is a crime

An announcement by British researchers saying they had succeeded in creating the country's first - and the world's second - cloned embryo has provoked a top Vatican official to condemn the creation of cloned embryos, describing it as a crime and saying it represents an offence to science.

A team of South Korean scientists became the first to clone a human embryo last year.

Monsignor Elio Sgreccia who heads the Pontifical Academy for Life, says that it must be underlined that human rights are being violated, and the experiments are motivated only by a desire to create "a being that is taken advantage of, because it is then killed".

Sgreccia says the situation is not only the crime of artificial reproduction, but also that of "killing, exploiting and maybe even commercialising the product."

Sgreccia is calling for "an increasingly robust conscience" in international organizations and in political authorities, so that an end can be put to the research, which signals moral decline in the scientific field, and is offensive to science.

The Vatican condemns cloning, and has warned that humanity's speedy progress in science and technology risks overlooking moral values.

Sgreccia says he sees "no new motivations" for the experiments and condemns cloning, he feels financial incentives are behind the research with laboratories that shock the most, attracting more money.