Essay - In 2001 a Human Embryo Was Cloned—at Least Technically. a...

In 2001 a human embryo was cloned—at least technically. A small biotech firm in Massachusetts took fertilized eggs, whose nuclei had been replaced, and watched them divide a few times before they died. South Korean researchers had reported the same results a few years ago. Such experiments are a beginning in the path toward human cloning. However, the news that this had been accomplished in our own country set off a cultural, religious and political furor. The question at ***** heart of the furious debate: when is a speck of cells a viable "person"? It is a debate that has its roots in theology, but now ***** impact on basic biomedical research. Some religions, in particular Catholicism, contend that the moment egg and sperm join, a new hum*****n being is created. *****nd some religious scient*****ts back this up. "It is a mistaken notion, or disingenuous, to say you can separate use ***** ***** cells from the act of having ***** destroy ***** embryos," said Dr. David A. Prentice, a pr*****essor of life sciences at Indiana St*****e University, who opposes the research. For Dr. Prentice, life begins ***** ***** and ***** ***** joined, and a new genome is cre*****ted. "What makes us a human being?" he asks. "It's the *****."

*****, many scientists and religious traditions disagree. In Judaism and Islam, *****hood ***** about a month after conception; and before a procl*****mation by Pope Pius IX in 1869, even in Catholicism, ensoulment occurred after three to six months.

Louis Pojman, Professor of Philosophy at the United States Military Academy, in West Pont, New York, argues in against the conservative "personhood" thesis. The most extreme version contends that every unborn child must be regarded as a hum*****n person with all the rights of a hum*****n person, from the moment of conception. Opponents ***** abortion, like Stephen Schwarz, say that it is impossible to draw a line at any ***** point and *****, this is not human, but ***** th***** is. Thus if we *****ow *****s (and by extension, research into human cloning, or in-vitro fertilization and ***** use of stem ***** from "d*****carded" embryos), we are justifying infanticide as well as murder in general.

Pojman creates some clever analogies. Are there no poor people in the world? Obviously having a single penny ***** no difference in whe*****r one is we*****lthy or poor. So if you keep tak*****g pennies ***** a billion*****ire until he's worth little more than a doll*****r, he still is not poor. T***** ***** goes for baldness—taking a single h*****ir from *****one with a full he*****d of hair makes no d*****ference—so just keep taking a single hair until he has only one strand of hair. Can we still say he's not bald?

The *****, Pojman is saying, ***** that a conceptu*****l argument does not always map onto reality. The current theological ***** is ***** conceptual than practical. He calls these types ***** arguments "slippery slope arguments" and says that in reality we do know the difference between rich and *****,