|
New Jersey is Off to See the Cloning Wizard 12/22/2003 CWA Commentary: Cloning advocates are intent upon taking us down the Yellow Brick Road.
New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey (D) was set to sign a bill on December 21, allowing human cloning for research purposes. The state Assembly approved the bill with a 41-31 vote on December 15. The bill will permit implantation of cloned human embryos into wombs, allow the baby to grow for nine months, and then destroy the unborn child for research. The bill prohibits human cloning for reproductive purposes, and LifeNews.com reports today that the signing may have been postponed so the governor could attend a funeral.
Three of New Jersey's U.S. representatives, Chris Smith (R-4th), Mike Ferguson (R-7th) and Scott Garrett (R-5th) wrote a letter to McGreevey, according to LifeNews.com, in which they called the bill the "most extreme and ethically flawed pro-cloning legislation in the country."
"This legislation will launch New Jersey blindly into the vanguard of terrible human rights violations and grisly human experimentation," the letter states. "We are literally facing the prospect of creating a human clone, and implanting this cloned baby into a woman's womb. Once this happens, nothing can stop the world's first human clone from being born and starting a horrible new era of human history."
The governor should heed the wise warning from the congressmen rather than follow Dorothy's example in The Wizard of Oz.
“There’s Emerald City! Oh, we’re almost there at last! At last! It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Just like I knew it would be! He really must be a wonderful wizard to live in a city like that!” But as all who’ve seen this classic movie know, Dorothy’s initial opinion was wrong.
This classic tale for children is instructive, however, for those who believe that human cloning will lead to cures for diseases and new organs for replacement. We all felt compassion for the plight of Dorothy and her three friends who were off to see the Wizard: The Scarecrow needed a brain; the Tin Man needed a heart; and the cowardly Lion needed courage – a spinal cord, so to speak.
Well-intentioned people and yellow brick roads can take you to people you don’t want to know and to places you don’t want to go. It was the “good” Witch of the North, Glinda, who tells Dorothy that she has to see the Wizard in order to get back home. Glinda advises her to “just follow the Yellow Brick Road.”
After meeting the Scarecrow, Dorothy becomes hungry and spots an apple tree orchard, but when she tries to pick an apple, she discovers these are not ordinary apple trees – they talk. And they say bothersome things like, “How would you like to have someone come along and pick something off of you?” We’ve started down the Yellow Brick Road once again.
The idea of cloning human embryos that will be destroyed after we extract their cells is already considered acceptable to proponents of cloning. Unlike Munchkinland, however, there are no talking embryos to prick a conscience. Cloning fans should heed the signpost outside the Haunted Forest on the way to the Witch’s castle, which warned, “I’d turn back if I were you!”
The Wicked Witch of the West, incensed because Dorothy’s house dropped on top of the Witch’s sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, sends her army of flying monkeys to snatch Dorothy away to the Witch’s castle. At her castle, the Witch thrusts her burning broomstick at the Scarecrow and sets his arm on fire. Now he needs an arm as well as a brain. Dorothy saves the Scarecrow and destroys the witch by throwing a bucket of water at him, which lands on the Witch, causing her to melt.
It was the Wizard who, after their initial visit, told Dorothy and her friends that she had to bring him the Witch’s broom in order to get what they wanted. When they make it back to the Wizard with the broom, Toto knocks over the Wizard’s screen, exposing him as just a befuddled and powerless little man – and after all they’d been through. He couldn’t provide a heart to the Tim Man, a spine to the cowardly lion, or a brain to the scarecrow. Prolonging a fraud always puts people at risk.
After promising Dorothy he could get her home in his hot air balloon, the Wizard launched it without her. When Dorothy screams for him to come back, he shouts, “I can’t come back! I don’t know how it works!” This predicament exists in the real world, too: The cloning of lab animals has led to spontaneous abortion and terrible abnormalities.
Children’s tales need happy endings, and happiness abounds at the end of Oz. The Scarecrow has a brain; the Tin Man’s heart is beating; the Lion is courageous; and Dorothy is singing, “There’s no place like home,” after clicking together her ruby slippers.
Dorothy’s three friends achieved their dreams of wholeness from within their own bodies. Likewise, by using stem cells found in our own bodies, not in the bodies of embryos, we can find cures for diseases and injuries. Nobody has to die. For example, recently it was reported that a California man’s symptoms of Parkinson’s disease have largely disappeared after doctors treated him with stem cells from his own brain.
The following sources of stem cells have been identified, as cited in The Whole Truth about Stem Cell Research by William L. Saunders Jr. and Charles A. Donovan:
Cloning advocates “don’t know how it works” yet they are intent upon taking us down the Yellow Brick Road to the Cloning Wizard from whom we will never “come back.” The New Jersey Legislature and the governor should heed the signpost outside the Haunted Forest: “I’d turn back if I were you!”
|
|
|
Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 |
Feedback / Questions? || Problem with this page? || Archives
