Ban Human Cloning Right Now

On Tuesday the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban the cloning of human embryos and thus curtail certain forms of stem cell research. The two of us, a women's health activist and a prochoice biologist, provided testimony before a congressional committee last month in favor of this bill.

Why would political progressives and defenders of reproductive autonomy advocate restricting what some have characterized as an area of medicine with great promise, thus finding ourselves on the same side of the issue as antichoice conservatives? We believe that any benefits that may result from stem cell research that utilizes ''clonal embryos,'' that is, genetic duplicates of existing individuals, would be far outweighed by the threats to women's health and to our sense of our humanity posed by creation of such embryos.

Because clonal human embryos could be used for experimental purposes and ultimately as sources of donor-matched embryo stem cells, some researchers and biotechnology companies have been resisting any restrictions on their ability to produce them.

Recently, Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester announced that it has already...