Now, if you?re thinking, ?Why not pursue both the adult and embryonic stem-cell research???think again. Besides destroying human life, the embryonic research being pursued by the Korean team and others involves human cloning.

And even the New York Times and the researchers admit that. But the phrase they use, therapeutic cloning, is a euphemism. As with so-called ?reproductive cloning,? a human embryo is being manufactured. As the Investor?s Business Daily put it, ?Attempting to make a distinction between ?therapeutic? and ?reproductive? cloning is like trying to say that eating for nutrition and eating for pleasure are somehow different.?

In both cases, we cross that line between human life as an end in itself and human life as a means to an end. As in the upcoming movie The Island, we are creating a class of human beings whose sole purpose is to provide the rest of us with spare body parts. That there?s little evidence that this monstrosity will even work is fittingly ironic.

This is why we need to support the president?s policy and to work to educate Congress. Human life is sacred, not something to be manufactured, used, and thrown away. What matters is doing right by life itself?and we can start by not believing everything we hear on the news.

For further reading and information:

Today?s BreakPoint offer: The BreakPoint Christian Response to Cloning resource kit includes information to help you make an informed argument for protecting the sanctity of human life.

David Stout and Timothy Williams, ?House Votes to Reverse Ban on Funding for Stem Cell Research,? New York Times, 24 May 2005. (Article costs $2.95 to retrieve when archived.)

Read a transcript of President Bush?s remarks on bioethics and stem cell research.

?Now Playing: Attack of the Clones,? Yahoo! News, 23 May 2005.

?Next Step on Stem Cells,? Washington Post, 21 May 2005, A18.

?Korean Stem Cell Success Stokes U.S. Debate,? Chosun Ilbo, 24 May 2005.

Learn more about the upcoming film The Island.

Bill Bishop, ?Partisan fractures reach into the countryside,? Austin American-Statesman, 23 May 2005.

Eric Cohen, ?Unorthodox Endorsement: Why Judaism Is Wrong on Stem Cells,? National Review, 24 May 2005.

William Saletan, ?Clone of Silence,? Slate, 19 May 2005.

See the Council for Biotechnology Policy website for more information on bioethics and biotechnology.

Charles Colson and Nigel M. de S. Cameron, eds., Human Dignity in the Biotech Century (InterVarsity, 2004).