Ban Now
On human cloning.

By NR Editors
From “The Week,” December 17, 2001, issue, of National Review

Worcester, Mass.-based company called Advanced Cell Technology claims to have cloned human embryos-the first time that has been done. Reports of this breakthrough have renewed congressional calls for a ban on cloning. But Congress has been divided on the scope of a ban: Many congressmen want to ban "reproductive cloning" while allowing "therapeutic cloning." In the latter case, a human embryo would be created but never implanted in any woman's womb; instead, it would be "harvested" for research and medical purposes and, in the process, destroyed. This kind of cloning is for some reason considered less troubling than reproductive cloning. But this is upside down. Therapeutic cloning involves creating a human embryo-which is to say, an embryonic human being-while planning to kill it. No medical breakthrough, however desired, can justify treating human life in this instrumental manner. Cloning should be banned comprehensively, and banned now, before what is naïvely called scientific "progress" can proceed further.