No Ban Is Better Than a Phony Ban
In the current issue of the Weekly Standard (7/1/02), author, lawyer and consumer advocate Wesley Smith notes that no ban at all on human cloning would be a far preferable option than a bogus ban that would allow the cloning of human embryos for research purposes, while attempting to prevent the implantation of those same cloned embryos in a woman’ s womb — the type of cloning ‘ban” envisioned in the Kennedy/Feinstein/Hatch legislation:
“Learning how to reliably create human clone blastocysts will require much time and money, assuming it can be done at all. Indeed, the whole reason to explicitly legalize research cloning is to free up research grants and private investment for this very purpose. Here’s the catch: Should the research cloning enterprise succeed in creating human clone blastocysts, the legal ban on reproductive cloning now being touted by pro-cloners would immediately be attacked…
“For those who consider such scenarios unlikely, remember this: When the National Academy of Sciences urged the government to pass a ban on human reproductive cloning last year, it did so not because human cloning was deemed morally objectionable but because it currently wasn’t deemed ‘safe.’ Such amoral reasoning hardly inspires confidence in the durability of a ban limited to reproductive cloning, or in the long-term commitment to maintaining it of those now urging that approach.”
— Wesley Smith, “No ban is better than a phony ban,” Weekly Standard, 7/1/02