Stem Cell Imperialism

Woo-Suk Hwang, the Korean human cloner, is forming the World Stem Cell Foundation that intends to circumvent the bans some nations and U.S. States have on human therapeutic cloning. The idea is to do the cloning in friendly areas and then cell the cloned stem cells in locales where cloning is not allowed. As I write in this article, this is not only in stark contrast to those seeking to find a morally permissible way to obtain tailor-made stem cells, but could spark a backlash.

This is the conclusion: “Scientists and bioethicists often complain that society is becoming anti-science. But perhaps the real problem is that many biotechnology boosters increasingly act as if popular beliefs about the wrongness of human cloning are irrelevant, indeed, that only the views of the privileged caste of scientists should count. Defiant proposals such as the World Stem Cell Foundation only add to this perception.”