Does “research cloning” create a human embryo?
In the recent past, some of those who support the cloning of human embryos have sought to persuade the media to stop using the term “embryo.” This is an intellectually dishonest exercise. Many scientific authorities including the National Institutes of Health, President Clinton’s bioethics panel, and leading cloning researchers have long acknowledged that somatic cell nuclear transfer is indeed “cloning” and will indeed produce a “human embryo.” A sampling of those authorities–including citations from an article by leading U.S. cloning researchers in the Journal of the American Medical Association–are collected on the NRLC website at www.nrlc.org/Killing_Embryos/factsheetembryo.html. On April 25, 2002, Dr. John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University, one of the discoverers of human embryonic stem cells and a supporter of human cloning for research, told the President’s Council on Bioethics he thinks the product of cloning is and should be called an “embryo.” He said, “I know that you a
