The project of producing human embryos

His Eminence comments on the operation of producing cloned human embryos to be used in medical treatment. He says: "Scientists have started talking about the possibility of using cloning in the field of medical treatment and transplanting organs". We say, scientifically speaking, that when the cell transforms into an embryo, so as there is a project of a human being in the making that has the organs of a normal person, even if it is at its primitive stage, we are not allowed to take any organ from this being, simply because this is similar to taking any organ from any other embryo or any other normal new born baby delivered in a normal way. This is not permissible. It is also impermissible to take any organ from any living thing, even if it is in its early life.

However, if the scientific progress necessitates that we take these elements that are found in a creature that has not become an embryo yet, we can take from it whatever we want before it is placed in the womb.

On the other hand, the Sayyed determines the time when the soul embraces the embryo's body. He says: "The Islamic jurisprudence used to believe that the soul embraces the embryo's body in the fourth month of pregnancy. However, some scientific theories say that this event happens in the seventh week.

Furthermore, some believe that reaching a certain scientific conclusion means that we have to get rid of many embryos during the experiments. His Eminence replies: "I do not agree with the killing of any living being in the form of an embryo, whether this embryo has been normally formed or has been cloned. However, it is allowed to destroy the fertilized ovum before it transforms into an embryo, when it is still outside the womb.

This is the Sayyed's comprehensive view towards the issue of the genetic modification that can be applied on the embryos, in order to cure them from some probable diseases, "there is no religious problem in curing the embryos at this stage of their life. This embryo can be given some genes that cure certain diseases or develop the gene itself."