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Most media commentators, however, oppose the ban, and highlight a letter sent by 40 Nobel Prize winners to the Senate supporting therapeutic cloning. "The Nobelists … held the higher moral ground in focusing on the great promise of cloning for curing intractable diseases," editorialized The New York Times.

What was most disturbing about Mr. Bush's remarks was their black-and-white, even apocalyptic tone. It was unfair and irresponsible for him to imply that those who wish to pursue therapeutic cloning that could benefit millions of suffering humans are traveling "without an ethical compass into a world we could live to regret." The real regret would come if we fail to pursue some of the most promising medical research spawned by modern biotechnology.

The Los Angeles Times took a more libertarian approach, worrying about the criminal penalties for cloning (10 years in prison and a $1 million fine) under Brownback's "overbearing" bill. Furthermore, lamented the paper, "There's a possibility that the president's speech was really meant to score points with ardent abortion opponents, many of whom were in the audience, and provide ammunition to use against Democrats in November. But even if that cynical scenario is true, Bush is rebuffing science."

What the Los Angeles Times and others fail to acknowledge is opposition to cloning is not limited to opponents of abortion. In fact, many prochoice advocates support such a ban. One such person is Francis Fukuyama, who takes aim those who say cloning should be legal because it is inevitable. "Pessimism about the inevitability of technological advance is wrong (though it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy if adopted by too many people)," he wrote in the current issue of Foreign Policy. "The speed and scope of technological development can indeed be controlled. … social regulation does not need to prevent all breaches to be effective. Every country makes murder a crime and attaches severe penalties to homicide, yet murders nonetheless occur. But the prevalence of murder has never been a reason for giving up on the law or on attempts to enforce it."

In a column for the online magazine Slate, former editor Michael Kinsley took aim at liberals who oppose cloning, especially those who do so for environmental reasons. "The only argument these folks offer against therapeutic cloning—beyond poetical clichÉs and vague luddism—is the slippery slope: Therapeutic cloning may lead to the other kind which may lead to genetic manipulation of the human race." That's not a good enough reason for "denying ourselves the fruits of scientific breakthroughs," such as treatments for Parkinson's, writes Kinsley, who has the disease. "Real human beings will pay the cost in wrecked or shortened lives."

In yesterday's BreakPoint radio commentary, Chuck Colson said that's the wrong calculus. "Human value and dignity don't depend on what we can do or what we have the potential to do," he says. "Human cloning creates an embryonic human being—someone in the image of God—for one purpose only. The embryonic human being is killed and 'disaggregated'—a polite way of saying, 'pulled to pieces for medical purposes.' It is barbaric, borders on the cannibalistic, and must be banned."

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April (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46