CLONING OR MEDICAL HELP FOR THE ILL

New Jersey will become only the second state, joining California to sanction stem cell research by a 41-31 vote in the Assembly. The Senate had passed the bill last December and it had become bogged down in the Assembly as a result of strong oppositon from the Roman Catholic Church and abortion foes who consider the destruction of any embryo a moral crime and as always seem to want to impose their morality on the rest of us.

The debate the other day in the Assembly was as one might imagine impassioned with one Republican declaring it a "human cloning bill". Friedrich Nietzsche may have gotten it right: IN CHRISTIANITY NEITHER MORALITY NOR RELIGION COME INTO CONTACT WITH REALITY AT ANY POINT.

Stem cells which are essentially blank cells created in the first days of pregnancy multiply quickly and are valued for their capacity to become different types of cells for organs, bone, skin, muscle. The hope is that research will some day allow us to grow replacement organs and tissues that could treat such diseases as Alzheimer's, leukemia and Parkinson's. The wisdom of Henry David Thoreau seems apt: AIM ABOVE MORALITY. BE NOT SIMPLY GOOD, BE GOOD FOR SOMETHING.

New Jersey law now allows residents who use fertility clinics to donate their unused embryos for research. The law also specifically makes it a first degree crime to use stem cells for human cloning.

As one wag noted: THE CLONING OF HUMANS IS ON MOST OF THE LISTS OF THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT FROM SCIENCE, ALONG WITH BEHAVIOUR CONTROL, GENETIC ENGINEERING, TRANSPLANTED HEADS, COMPUTER POETRY AND UNRESTRAINED GROWTH OF PLASTIC FLOWERS. (Lewis Thomas)