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It's like the hypothetical situation that has been proposed - if there is an embryo in one room and a five year old in another and you can only save one from a fire, which would it be?
Okay - what if it's a newborn and a five year old? Or a teenager and a five-year-old? An senior citizen or a young cancer patient?
Stages of life or location do not determine humanity - only the genetic makeup does. That is present from the cell-division stage of SCNT - a genetic replica of the original somatic cell. Whether you harvest the cells or let it grow in a uterus, or maybe an artificial womb someday - they are human from the very start. Otherwise, what use are they to researchers?
To make a human clone you need to skip the step of harvesting the stem cells for research and instead take the following step: the egg with the replaced nucleus is inserted in a womb and the fetus is brought to term.
The discussion is about using the process to create stem cells, not about reproductive cloning (to "make human clones"). Since Amendment 2 (link in the article above) specifically says "No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being", and since the Amendment is specifically for allowing research into stem cell research, the argument that this is about Human Cloning doesn't apply.
We in America need to pull back from this Frenzy of Fear that has spellbound us since September 11, 2001. I am not saying to let down our guard or not be prudent with our Law enforcement, Intelligence agencies or Military as their constant job is to protect the American people and they do it well. Rationally speaking it is more likely that a person will be killed in a car accident on the way to get milk than killed by a Terrorist in America. Hispanics coming across our border for work are not the terrorist or the enemy. Unfair trade practices initiated by our government are the cause of our jobs leaving and the demise of the Middle Class in America not some Terrorist plot. Political Parties have been using fear in an attempt to maintain power in this country. Americans do the math you are more likely to do yourself bodily harm than to be harmed by a Terrorist. America is a Land of Opportunity and hopes where people live in Freedom. America is not a land were people will be governed by Fear.
Michael C. Boetjer
Captain U. S. Army
Double Blue Star Father
SCNT is human cloning. That is the bottom line of what is most wrong about this amendment. SCNT is DEFINED by the scientific community as CLONING. It is not a "first step". It is what it is - making a genetic copy of an organism, in this case, a human being.
The amendment makes its own definition of cloning - it's not a human clone unless you implant or attempt to implant it into a human uterus.
As far as an analysis being just what one side thinks the amendment is - again, it is what it is. The amendment specifically grants constitutional protection to the scientific community to manufacture human life for the purpose of research. And the biotech industry ALONE is spending millions of dollars to make that happen.
Fortunately, Amendment 2 specifically takes human cloning completely off the table, by saying in Section One - specifically - "No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being."
If you want to pose a "slippery slope" argument against the amendment, that's fine, you can argue that future amendments could open the door for human cloning. But as the amendment currently stands, the ONLY use provided by law for SCNT would be for stem cell research, and cloning humans is specifically forbidden.
I have a 24 year old daughter who is wheelchair bound with a spinal cord injury and she is completely against using human embryos for research. One reason is that adult stem cells show much more promise without the ethical and moral concerns. Embryonic stem cell research shows less promise and is more costly. Why not spend research dollars on something that has more chance of showing results sooner? Right now all this research is legal in Missouri but not being done because the research companies are holding it hostage until they get guarentees that no laws or regulations will be passed to "prevent, restrict, obstruct, or discourage any stem cell research or stem cell therapies" (again, right out of the amendment wording).