The next skirmish in the battle over human cloning has begun, and the intellectual and moral arguments from the anti-cloning camp are as poor as ever. Perhaps we should all simply wait for the next Star Wars movie -- Attack of the Clones -- and let George Lucas tell us what we ought to think. Here, with annotation, are some of the highly edifying things being said about the biotech firm Advanced Cell Technology's announcement that it has cloned the first human embryo:
"Human reproduction is now in the hands of men, when it rightfully belongs in the hands of God."-- Raymond Flynn, President, National Catholic Alliance
But didn't God give men hands? & c & c
"The use of embryos to clone is wrong. We should not as a society grow life to destroy it. And that's exactly what's taking place."-- President George W. Bush
Note the characteristic scientific flub: Bush suggests an embryo was somehow used to clone an embryo; in reality genetic material from human skin cells and cumulus cells was implanted into unfertilized eggs. And of course, he doesn't mention the fact that the purpose of therapeutic cloning is to help scientists cure disease and save lives. For my account of why Bush can't get his science straight, see "Political Science."
". . .However much those who favor experimental cloning (which they dishonestly call 'therapeutic') seek to distinguish it from live-birth cloning (which they call 'reproductive'), they are the same thing. Every step in refining the human cloning technique brings nearer the birth of a cloned born baby."-- Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Dean, The Wilberforce Forum
If therapeutic and reproductive cloning are the same thing, then why has Congress been considering two rival bills, one to ban all human cloning and one that allows therapeutic cloning? And if you believe in the slippery slope argument, why not ban science altogether, since it is leading to the cloning of embryos, which could lead straight down the path to armies of baby clones. . .
"Any step, however small, toward the scary goal of cloning human beings touches off an understandable frenzy."-- The Washington Post editorial page
Since when are frenzies understandable? Does this leading paper also endorse the bogus "slippery slope" argument against biomedical advance?
"Speak the word 'embryo' and immediately you are inside the arena of 'reproductive freedom' (abortion), a weapon no liberal politician fails to swing these days at a conservative opponent."-- The Wall Street Journal editorial page
Liberal politicians must be powerful indeed if they're capable of swinging arenas at their opponents. As usual, the Journal is making the Post look good.
"Knowing how to clone a human embryo for "therapeutic" purposes...doesn't mean, in the technical sense, that we're ready to start rolling out new assembly-line babies But 'can,' assuming the validity of the [Advanced Cell Technology] experiment, is just that: 'can.' Moreover, 'can' leads to 'might,' . . . and 'might' is one of those terms you never laugh off, as in 'a-hijacked-jetliner-might-someday-incinerate-an-American-skyscraper.'"-- columnist Bill Murchison
So now human cloning is on a par with 9/11? Talk about moral equivalency.
"Artificially nurturing a woman's egg -- which is a gift from God -- into an embryo without benefit of fertilization by a male's sperm is, nonetheless, human cloning and should be condemned as such."-- The Washington Times editorial page
How utterly sexist. What -- don't male sperm count as a gift from God?
And so forth and so on. What's curious is that, despite the latest hoopla, we haven't heard yet from Bush's erudite bioethics advisor Leon Kass. Kass, of course, makes the strongest case for an outright cloning ban. "We are repelled by the prospect of cloning human beings," he has written, "not because of the strangeness or novelty of the undertaking, but because we intuit and feel, immediately and without argument, the violation of things that we rightfully hold dear." Notice that I said that Kass makes a "case," not an "argument."
The Missionary Position
It simply has to be done.
First, let me say that I rejoice that Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry, the two American aid workers who had been put on trial by the Taliban for preaching Christianity, have escaped from Afghanistan unharmed and are now back in the United States with their families.
But I don't rejoice at the way they're currently being transformed into American heroes. Mercer and Curry are, essentially, just what the Taliban has said they are: missionaries. Curry has told The New York Times that 80 percent of the Taliban charges against them were false. In other words, 20 percent were true. Here are the things these women did do in Afghanistan, according to the Times: "She said they had gone into an Afghan home and that she had given one Afghan family a photocopy of a book of stories about Jesus in Persian and English. She also said Afghans had been shown a film about Jesus."
Since Curry and Mercer have been free, they have been thanking Jesus every chance they get, claiming that they always knew God would rescue them from the Taliban without even noticing the irony that the Taliban are constantly saying the same exact thing about being rescued from the U.S. military. Even worse, Curry and Mercer have recently expressed an interest in returning to Afghanistan. What will they be doing, I wonder? Obviously foreign aid work is a good and noble thing -- whether under the auspices of a Christian organization or otherwise. But in a world in which the U.S. is trying to prove it is a force for global justice rather than an imperialistic oppressor, the last thing we need is to be represented abroad by 19th century-minded conversion-seekers.
Stop, I Can't Take Any More!
The fodder from this country's armada of right wing columnists just keeps on coming. Here's what Boston Herald columnist Don Feder has to say about "liberals" -- that blanket category -- in his latest 750-word masterpiece:
In a column shortly after Sept. 11, I called liberalism America's homegrown suicide cult and the real threat to our nation's survival. Osama bin Laden isn't the only one who deserves to be hiding in a cave, cowering every time he hears a jet overhead.
This comes at the end of a rant that attacks liberals for anything ranging from a speech by the historian Howard Zinn (who's way too far left to be called a liberal) to concerns about the administration's recently announced military tribunals (which spans the political spectrum).
But forget about Feder's failures of political pointillism. The real question is whether we err in referring to writings like this as "journalism" at all. Indeed, even the dismissive moniker "punditry" seems far too tolerant. Feder's latest column, in its seething and irrational animosity, can only be called political hate speech. Could he be the "other, other Coulter?"
