DOES CLONING REALLY CREATE A HUMAN EMBRYO?
Over the past year there has been a concerted effort by the biotech industry and others to persuade the public that the process should not really be called cloning, and/or that it will not really create a human embryo. But many scientific authorities, including leading cloning researchers, as well as federal bioethics panels appointed by both President Clinton and President Bush, have stated flatly that somatic cell nuclear transfer is indeed cloning and will indeed produce a human embryo. For example, as President Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission, in its 1997 report Cloning Human Beings, stated: The Commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo, with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term. More recently, in July of this year, the Presidents Council on Bioethics, appointed by President Bush, issued its own in-depth re
