The Body Shop

There are those opposed to the use of cloning technology to create human embryos for stem-cell research whose concerns emanate from commitments to social justice. One of their arguments runs as follows: The idea driving this medical research is that by creating an embryo through cloning, we can produce embryonic stem cells that are a perfect genetic match for a patient. All that is required to conduct the cloning is a skin cell from which to extract the patient's DNA and...a human egg.

Where, cry out the social justice advocates, are we going to get all these eggs for all these patients? Do the math, they suggest: 17 million American diabetics, needing anywhere from 10 to 100 eggs each, since the cloning technology is far from efficient...and even if you can pull that off, Christopher Reeve is still not walking, Michael J. Fox and Janet Reno still tremble and Ronald Reagan still doesn't remember who Ronald Reagan was. The social justice folk maintain that the billions of eggs required for embryonic stem cell therapies for the millions of Americans suffering...