President Bush and other members of the American political community are affirming their opposition to the first successful attempt at cloning a human embryo, made by scientists at Advanced Cell Technology in Massachusetts. Announced on Sunday, this potentially life-saving medical breakthrough has met fierce condemnation from politicians and conservative interest groups who consider it morally wrong to create human embryos for research purposes.
Bush said to the press on Monday: "We should not as a society grow life to destroy it. It's morally wrong in my opinion." Apparently, the personal moral structures of healthy politicians are far more important than the diseases and disabilities of the American citizens who could possibly benefit from medical treatments using cloned cells. Nonetheless, if the bill reaches his desk, Bush intends to sign it, banning the cloning of both human babies and embryos.
One human embryo has the power to create a wide variety of organ tissues. This is because the tissues develop from stem cells that, at this early stage of development, have the power to convert into all kinds of tissue, such as nerve, liver, and bone marrow. Successful experiments with mice reveals that stem cells can partially regenerate a ruptured spinal cord, an indication that, with the help of stem cells, there may one day be a cure for paralysis. Stem cell research also shows potential to treat cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer's disease.
Ironically, Bush's scientifically useless decision to limit stem cell research forces the biomedical companies to experiment with cloning techniques. Even though scientists believe this is the best way to harvest stem cells, Bush, due to all of those vexing moral issues, prohibits the use of federal funds to sponsor stem cell research derived from cloning. If the federal government bans these efforts altogether, they are only impeding life-saving research and eliminating the opportunity to guide and regulate such activities.
Religious and moral values develop within an individual's heart - and deserve to stay there. The United States now allows the abortion of human fetuses, and should not in the future create legal obstructions to experimentation on embryos composed only of a few cells. The multitude of benefits that could very likely result from embryonic cloning far outweigh its questionable moral detriment.
Politicians like Bush believe that if they just issue a ban, the problem goes away. Although the government can tell scientists to stop cloning research in America, that doesn't mean the rest of the world will listen. Scientists who want to carry out experiments legally will leave the country, draining the American scientific community into an international pool much like post-WWII Germany.
The removal of federal authority also lets the criminals have their way. While most scientists are interested in cloning embryos, less scrupulous ones not subject to government oversight are freer to engage in experiments such as the cloning of full-bodied human beings, a development the United States government certainly should not allow to occur without its involvement.
The federal government should step up to, not away from, human cloning. They must fund, regulate and monitor these activities to prevent inappropriate experiments. Although Advanced Cell Technology appears responsible, the lack of any regulation allows other companies to exploit cloning technology for their own financial gains.
Otherwise, the ultimate America's future holds unregulated, underground cloning operation that bars its knowledge from law-abiding scientists, and its medical developments from the sick and debilitated. With such high stakes, the question isn't whether or not humans have the moral right to clone, but how we could refuse to heal.
The morality of the issue is something that people must decide for themselves. We don't need George W. Bush or any other politician to decide for us.
