The U.S. News God & Country Blog has posted a five-part email exchange between Douglas Kmiec and Robert P. George on whether President Obama has allowed cloning. An excerpt from George:
Having stated, on the basis of an erroneous report you were given, that the President prohibited human cloning, I think you need to make sure readers are informed that the President did nothing of the kind, and that in fact he supports human cloning to create embryos specifically for use in research in which they are destroyed, and that he is willing to let research using materials taken from human embryos created by cloning be funded with federal taxpayer’s dollars . . .
More from George:
So the incontestable (and morally central) fact is that President Obama’s executive order has made research using cells and cell lines produced by destroying human embryos created by somatic cell nuclear transfer eligible for federal funding. This means, as bioethics writer Will Saletan (a supporter of embryo-destructive research) candidly puts it, “the mass production, exploitation, and destruction of human embryos.”
