Appendix B. 
183 
has the potential for life, but it is not a life because it cannot develop 
on its own. 
An ethicist dismissed that as a callous attempt at 
rationalization. Make no mistake, he told me, that cluster of cells is 
the same way you and I, and all the rest of us, started our lives. One 
goes with a heavy heart if we use these, he said, because we are 
dealing with the seeds of the next generation. 
And to the other crucial question, if these are going to be 
destroyed anyway, why not use them for good purpose — I also found 
different answers. Many argue these embryos are byproducts of a 
process that helps create life, and we should allow couples to donate 
them to science so they can be used for good purpose instead of 
wasting their potential. Others will argue there's no such thing as 
excess life, and the fact that a living being is going to die does not 
justify experimenting on it or exploiting it as a natural resource. 
At its core, this issue forces us to confront fundamental 
questions about the beginnings of life and the ends of science. It lies 
at a difficult moral intersection, juxtaposing the need to protect life in 
all its phases with the prospect of saving and improving life in all its 
stages. 
As the discoveries of modem science create tremendous 
hope, they also lay vast ethical mine fields. As the genius of science 
extends the horizons of what we can do, we increasingly confront 
complex questions about what we should do. We have arrived at that 
brave new world that seemed so distant in 1932, when Aldous 
Huxley wrote about human beings created in test tubes in what he 
called a "hatchery." 
In recent weeks, we learned that scientists have created 
human embryos in test tubes solely to experiment on them. This is 
deeply troubling, and a warning sign that should prompt all of us to 
think through these issues very carefully. 
Embryonic stem cell research is at the leading edge of a 
series of moral hazards. The initial stem cell researcher was at first 
reluctant to begin his research, fearing it might be used for human 
cloning. Scientists have already cloned a sheep. Researchers are 
telling us the next step could be to clone human beings to create 
individual designer stem cells, essentially to grow another you, to be 
available in case you need another heart or lung or liver. 
I strongly oppose human cloning, as do most Americans. We 
recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts, or 
creating life for our convenience. And while we must devote 
enormous energy to conquering disease, it is equally important that 
we pay attention to the moral concerns raised by the new frontier of 
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