Are the debates about embryonic stem cells (and human cloning) really about abortion?
No and yes. Factually, abortion is quite irrelevant. But the politics of abortion definitely affects the debate.46 Pro-lifers oppose most abortions because they believe that “innocent human life” is sacrosanct from the point of conception until a natural death. Pro-choice adherents believe that laws preventing abortion (at least before fetal viability) violate a woman’s human right to personal autonomy and self-determination. Thus, they support the legal right of abortion in order to ensure that pregnant women aren’t forced to do with their bodies some-thing they might not wish to do specifically, gestate and give birth. This dispute is irrelevant to ESC research and human cloning since applying these technologies would not force women to do anything with their bodies; “choice,” as the term is understood in the abortion issue, is not involved at all. What does human cloning have to do with ESC research? Many biotech researchers believe that human cloning may be a necessary adjunct to h
