As the Missouri Legislature began its special session Tuesday, Gov. Matt Blunt and legislative leaders sought to make clear that an anti-abortion bill won't delve into stem cells this time around.
Blunt reiterated his opposition to any proposals that would ban a certain kind of early stem cell research known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, or therapeutic cloning.
"We should not criminalize responsible scientific research here in our state, and that includes somatic cell nuclear transfer," Blunt told the board of the Missouri Biotechnology Association, a trade organization for several dozen life sciences businesses.
So the governor wants to keep cloning for cures and cash legal, although cloning for babies would be off-limits. Is there a difference?
Obviously there is a difference in outcomes. In therapeutic cloning, the resulting embryo is dissected at day 5 of its development when the inner cell mass is withdrawn. Those stem cells are then grown into cells lines from which any sort of tissue may be developed. Or so the theory goes.
In reproductive cloning, the resulting embryo is put back into a womb and allowed to mature until natural birth.
Though the intent of the projects are different, the technique is identical. Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. It goes by a lot of different names these days: all thought up by people who are trying to convince us that there is a real technical difference between therapeutic and reproductive cloning. They are lying.
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