Would a complete ban on human cloning interfere with promising medical research?
No. As an avenue to human treatments, embryonic stem cell research in general is being superceded by research using stem cells from adult tissue, placentas, umbilical cord blood, etc. (see www.stemcellresearch.org). Even within the field of embryo research, the use of cloning to make human embryos for research (so-called “therapeutic cloning”) is falling out of favor, as alternative means are found for making genetically matched cells and the wastefulness of the cloning procedure is better understood. PPL Therapeutics, involved in the creation of “Dolly” the sheep, has announced discovery of a way to redirect a patient’s own body cells to make different kinds of stem cells without producing a cloned embryo. Even many who support research using “spare” embryos from fertility clinics have said it is unconscionable to create human embryos solely for research that will destroy them. Why choose a more ineffective and legally questionable way to ban cloning, solely to protect research that i
