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 Favors Therapeutic Cloning Group Disagrees with Cloning Opponent, George W. Bush Gay Pioneer, the First Cloning Activist, Speaks to the Issues |
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Compiled by GayToday
The White House spokesperson, Ari Fleischer, has told reporters Mr. Bush does not intend to change his mind, asserting that Bush "looks at these issues from a scientific and moral standpoint." The U.S. Senate, currently preparing to consider legislation that would back Mr. Bush, may indeed ban all types of cloning, either for reproduction or for medical research. Advocates for patients with diseases such as Diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease will argue that the ban should be limited to reproductive cloning, but that, as is the case in Great Britain, therapeutic cloning should be legalized. Randolfe H. Wicker, the gay movement's pioneering media whiz kid of the early 1960s, and, in 1997, the founder of the world's first pro-human cloning activist group, addressed the National Academy of Sciences' announcement with a statement of his own. He said: "We at the Reproductive Cloning Network support the right of everyone to access cloning technology for both therapeutic and reproductive purposes. "We disagree with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) insofar as we believe that single women and infertile couples have the right to "assume risk" if they are fully informed of the dangers involved. "Reproductive rights include the right to not only assume risks but even to make what third parties may decide is an "unwise" decision. We believe that the parents should have the right to chose what they think is in their and their family's best interest. When this right is removed by the state we step towards totalitarianism. "We support the right of individuals to make choices, even so-called 'dangerous' or 'unwise' choices. We support the right of people to reproduce using cloning technology. "However, what is most worrisome in the current debate in the United States is the manner in which widespread ignorance, disapproval of and misunderstanding about reproductive human cloning is being used as a means to outlaw the technology that is the heart of both effective stem cell research and human reproductive cloning. "The House of Representatives passed retrograde legislation which would make American science and American medicine the prisoner of religious zealots who view an embryo, no bigger than the dot at the end of this sentence, as being equivalent to an existing life--mother, father, wife, husband, sister, brother, loved one. "We at The Reproductive Cloning Network believe the underlying issue in this debate is the issue of scientific and medical freedom. "In that regard, we totally support those who would legalize this technology for medical rather than reproductive purposes. "The medical implications of Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) or "cloning" will touch the lives of millions of people. The need for effective stem cell research is equal to and probably more important than the need for reproductive cloning. "We deplore the efforts of those opposed to reproductive human cloning who use us as "an excuse" to hamper life saving therapies for millions of ailing human beings. "These issues, therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning, must be separated in this debate for the public good.
"Let us join England in embracing the promise of stem cell therapy. Let us expose those who would use the charade of being "against the cloning of human beings" to delay/prevent cures for Juvenile-onset Diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Disease and countless other afflictions from becoming realties in time to help those now living and now suffering." |
