“The grisly science of embryo cloning”

An article by Roger Highfield, the science correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, appeared under this headline in London’s Week in August 2000. Highfield described how recent authors distinguish between reproductive cloning, in which a new animal or human being is created from one “parent,” and therapeutic cloning, the purpose of which is regenerative therapy. Such therapy uses material taken from human embryos as therapeutic products in the (possible future) treatment of certain illnesses. The two-way classification is not accurate because both types of cloning are reproductive: it’s just that in (so-called) therapeutic cloning a human being is created in vitro for the specific purpose, first, of experimentation, and secondly, if the research is successful, so that its tissues can be mined for use in medical treatments. In other words embryos will be created and then killed in order that other human...