COMMENTARY

No Spin Clone Zone
Full Text of Letter Published by USA Today, December 3, 2001

Jonathan Imbody
Senior Policy Analyst
Christian Medical Association

With Congress focused on the war on terrorism, scientists at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) have taken the opportunity to clone a human being. ACT's ethics board/PR machine hopes to blunt public revulsion by terming the cloned human being--who has already died--an "activated egg". The spin won't work. A huge majority of Americans remain vehemently opposed to human cloning, and for good reason. In the highly controversial cloning process, many human embryos must die before one is born. Animal cloning experts point out that human cloning will likewise lead to gross abnormalities and birth defects. We simply do not have sufficient scientific knowledge to avoid disasters. As National Human Genome Research Institute Director Francis Collins, MD noted when announcing the results of mapping the human genome, "We are today at the beginning of human biology." Ethically, the purported therapeutic end of "clone and kill" experimentation cannot justify the unethical means. A civilized society upholds the inherent--not utlitarian--value of human life.

Practically, we surely cannot trust ambitious biotechnicians to stop human clone development before a cloned baby is born. Accordingly, Senator Sam Brownback has called for a vote on  pending legislation that would permanently ban this dangerous and unethical procedure. Rather than using human beings as venture capital for a lucrative biotech industry, we should instead humbly acknowledge our scientific limitations and ethical constraints. To paraphrase the words of Pogo: "We have met the Creator, and He is not us."