"Therapeutic Cloning"
The Lost Nomad today links to this very informative article: What California can learn from Korean cloning scandal. I encourage everyone to read the article in its entirity, but will highlight certain key points.

Without even thinking about the ethics of human cloning, the issue of women's heath arises:

When apologists for "therapeutic cloning" speak airily of hopes of cures, not only are they guilty of hype, they fail to disclose that every single cloning effort requires eggs. These eggs are not laid by chickens. They must be extracted, after more than a week of powerful, daily hormone injections, by inserting a needle into a woman's ovary -- an unpleasant procedure leading sometimes to serious long-term health problems from ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. There are complaints from thousands of women who have taken these hormones. There is also no conclusive research putting to rest speculation connecting the drugs to ovarian cancer.

The threat to women's health, especially poor women, is so great that it helped bring together pro-choice and pro-life advocates in a common effort to ban human cloning. While the United States still has no federal law prohibiting cloning, other nations including Canada, France, Germany, Norway and Australia, have made human cloning for any purpose a serious crime (meriting five years of jail time in socially liberal Canada and seven in secular France). Additionally, the U.N. General Assembly recently passed the U.N. Declaration on Human Cloning, which (by a vote of nearly 3 to 1) calls on all nations to prohibit all forms of human cloning. The declaration voiced concern that biotechnology developments could exploit women. It has not taken long to be proved right.

This section says more about the Korean character than about cloning:

South Korea supports human embryo cloning for research. South Koreans have lionized Hwang. There is talk of a Nobel Prize nomination. More than 1,000 Korean women have already signed up to give him their eggs -- on a Web site ("grotesque and bizarre" is the verdict from a Korean women's group). The Web site includes a telling comment from a man saying he "fought" with his wife because she refused to sign up. The site deems those who do sign on as "angels" in the "patriotic army"; an entire high school class of 33 girls has signed up. Conversely, there have been death threats against journalists critical of the effort.

Even after Hwang apologized and resigned, the government tried to defend him from "Western" values. But this isn't East or West -- it's ethics. When Hwang was short of eggs, two junior researchers "donated" theirs. Such is the position of those at the low end of a research team that a commonly acknowledged international ethical guideline to avoid exploitation stipulates that subordinates must never be allowed to take personal risks to conduct research.

On the same theme, Pro-Life News links to this revealing article: Embryonic Stem Cell Therapies to Cure Disease is “Pure Folly”, Says MIT Prof: Reveals Some Scientists Don’t Oppose Embryonic Research Out of Fear of Reprisals.

Dr. James Sherley notes the difficulties of ESCR:

Embryonic stem cells cannot be used directly [because] they form tumours when transplanted into mature tissues....

It is pure scientific folly to place such emphasis on embryonic stem cells research to the exclusion of support for adult stem cell research. No matter what the hurdles are for success with adult stem cell-based therapy development, embryonic stem cell research faces the same hurdles and more.

The good professor goes on to give the scientific definition of life:

Despite the confusion that some like to create on the questions of 'are embryos human beings?' and 'when does a human life begin?', both scientists and physicians know very well that human embryos are alive and human... A human life begins when a diploid complement of human DNA is initiated to begin human development. Therefore, a life can be initiated by the fusion of sperm and egg or by the introduction of a diploid nucleus into an enucleated egg (ie, 'cloning').

Given that embryos are human beings, they have a right to self and a right to life... Exploiting their parts (ie, cells) or killing them for research is moral trespass that society should not allow. Even if the research might, and let’s be clear, might benefit others, this trespass is not justified.

This is something that just dawned on me this morning. The Catholic position that life begins at conception, in addition to being spiritual, is the only possible position for a materialist. An embryo, upon conception, has a unique and complete set of DNA. Any other definition of life is non-materialist in nature.