Babies Clones, and Destroyed, for Science

Scientists Clone and Kill Human Embryos for Dubious Research

Scientists in Oregon announced today that they had created cloned human embryos, and then destroyed the embryos to extract embryonic stem cells.

The cloning technique is essentially the same one used to create Dolly the cloned sheep, with some modifications to make cloning work using human eggs and human cells. This is the first claim of growing human embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos since the fraudulent claims in 2004 and 2005 of Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk. The report, published online in the journal Cell, also highlights the fact that women are a target for raw materials for the cloning technique, since “premium quality” eggs are required to make their human cloning technique work.

It’s a grave concern that some scientists are still pursuing human cloning, a technology that will open the door to human engineering and a brave – but highly dangerous – new world. Human cloning by this technique requires the specific creation of a new individual, albeit cloned, at the embryo stage, using human eggs and human tissue cells.

Modern science has passed this by, especially in regards to stem cells. Creating and destroying cloned human embryos to extract their embryonic stem cells is unethical, and the entire faulty concept of using the cloning technique has been superseded by uncontroversial techniques.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary