Obama Accused of Creating False Distinction Between "Therapeutic" and "Reproductive" Cloning
It has been widely reported that while signing an executive order that will allow federal spending on embryo-destructive stem cell research, US President Barack Obama commented that human cloning is "dangerous, profoundly wrong and has no place in our society." But his actual remarks, as recorded and posted to the White House Website, were more specific.
The president said, "And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong and has no place in our society, or any society."
The omission, says one pundit, creates the false impression that "reproductive cloning" is somehow distinct from "therapeutic cloning," and that while the former is to be condemned, the latter will save lives and cure diseases.
Terence P. Jeffrey, writing for CNS.com, said that this distinction, which has been used to create what pro-life advocates have identified as "clone and kill" legislation around the world, "is self-evidently absurd."
"Clone and kill" legislation mandates that human clones that are created in a lab must be killed within a certain period of time (usually a couple weeks), and cannot be implanted in a woman's womb. Critics, however, have responded that the only real distinction between such therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning, is that the former ensures that the created human lives are destroyed and not given a chance at life.
"If you allow human cloning for any purpose, you are allowing it for human reproduction. That is what human cloning does," said Jeffrey.
Jeffrey wrote that this "intellectually indefensible" position is used to advance an equally indefensible policy: "Obama's carefully crafted cloning self-contradiction fits perfectly within the duplicitous argument underlying a longstanding bill, pushed in Congress by promoters of 'embryonic stem cell research,' that would specifically legalize cloning human embryos so they can be killed for their stem cells."
Jeffrey concluded: "Bioethics experts have for years pointed out the deception involved in much of the cloning industry's language. But this has not stopped it from having been adopted successfully by industry lobbyists to install legislation that allows cloning while purporting to ban 'reproductive cloning.'"
In jurisdictions as widely separated as Britain, Canada, New Zealand, several US states, Singapore and South Africa, the distinction between "therapeutic" and "reproductive" cloning has been used to create "clone and kill" legislation.
Contact: Hilary White
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Source URL: http://www.LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: March 12, 2009
Link to this article:
http://www.ifrl.org/ifrl/news/090312_4.htm
