Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Men's News Daily Wants Cloning

I am unimpressed with this article supporting therapeutic cloning.

It is too short on the bigger issue, whether or not taking embryonic stem cells is taking human lives, stating simply:

"These embryos are not human beings, but microscopic bits of protoplasm the width of a human hair. They have the potential to grow into human beings, but actual human beings are the ones dying for lack of this technology."

and then leaving it at that, with no thought that not everyone may agree. In fact, he seems to imply that people who claim to be opposed to therapeutic cloning on these grounds are dishonest:

"Opponents of therapeutic cloning know all this, but are unmoved. This is because their fundamental objection is not that therapeutic cloning is antilife, but that it entails 'playing God'--i.e., remaking nature to serve human purposes."

He then proceeds to use the rest of the article dealing with the lesser issue, the Luddite opposition to therapeutic cloning, rather than the Pro-Life opposition.

Ah, reading the bottom of the page, it all becomes clear. He is part of the Ayn Rand Institute. In my experience, Randians tend to believe that no moral issues are particularly thorny, and that all moral issues have an obvious and simple answer, and that everyone knows this but some are too perverted to agree with the obvious truth. So obviously, he doesn't feel he has a need to discuss whether or not the embryo is a human being, because he knows that everyone deep down believes as he does, they're just too pigheaded to admit it.

That is all.

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