Discovery Institute Bioethicist Lauds Breakthrough in Stem Cells Research that Eliminates Need for Human Cloning

    SEATTLE, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Scientists have announced
 that they successfully reprogrammed adult cells back to an embryonic-like
 state, opening the possibility of patient-specific medical treatments and
 research without the need to clone human life.
     Wesley J. Smith, the Discovery Institute's Senior Fellow in Bioethics
 and author of Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World, hailed the
 breakthrough as demonstrating that ethical science is also good science:
 "Everyone should applaud this tremendous scientific achievement. We now
 have the very real potential of developing thriving and robust stem cell
 medicine and scientific research sectors that will bridge, rather than
 exacerbate, our moral differences over the importance and meaning of human
 life."
     "This breakthrough demonstrates the creativity and intelligence of the
 science sector," Smith added. "I think President Bush deserves some credit
 for the exciting research into 'alternative methods' of deriving
 pluripotent cells. Had the president followed the crowd instead of leading
 it, most research efforts would have been devoted to trying to perfect
 embryonic stem cell and human cloning research-which despite copious
 funding have not worked out yet as scientists originally had hoped."
     Smith called upon the NIH, state, and private research funders to shift
 their focus away from human cloning research and into the more viable
 alternatives.
     "We should now move to outlaw all human cloning," Smith explained. "It
 is not only unethical to treat human life like an item of manufacture, but
 it will divert billions of dollars and many years of our best researchers'
 efforts way from areas of advancement that have the chance to do tremendous
 good without the terrible moral cost of permitting human cloning."
 
 

SOURCE Discovery Institute