Cloning for California? A money grab for human-cloning research
Wesley J. Smith
For all of the talk of impending miracle cures to be derived from "therapeutic cloning," the market knows better. Venture capitalists are avoiding financing the immoral research like cats shying away from water. As an article published recently in the Seattle Times summed up the situation, investors "aren't committing billions of dollars," in cloning and embryonic-stem-cell research because "society hasn't clearly decided whether the research is moral," "the field is too risky," and researchers "don't know how to do it cheaply, conveniently, or consistently enough to make it a viable business."
Stymied by the wisdom of investors' caution, but intent on learning how to clone human life reliably, the industry and its allies in the science and bioethics establishments have resorted to a Plan B: Get taxpayers to foot the bill. The most audacious of these special-interest money grabs is now unfolding in California, where supporters of human-cloning research have amassed a $20-million budget to pass the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act (CSCRCA). If passed in November, the bill would both create a right to engage in human-cloning research and pay for it by forcing cash-strapped Californians to borrow $3 billion via the issuance of bonds.
Read the entire article on the National Review Online website.