Author's note, March 20, 2007 - I grew up in Iowa, taught school and drew editorial cartoons there, before moving to Illinois. While I live here now, I consider myself a native Iowan. Not long ago, I received an Iowa paper in which I saw a column by Rep. Rod Roberts, regarding the cloning ban and which also said that embryonic stem cell research is legal in Iowa. From the internet I saw an article, dated March 1st and attributed to the Des Moines Register, which reported that the governor signed into a law, a bill lifting a ban “on a type of embryonic stem cell research called somatic nuclear transfer.” Somatic cell nuclear transfer is cloning.
The kind of
cloning referred to as therapeutic cloning destroys the embryo to obtain
stem cells. Therapeutic relates to healing disease and sounds good, but you
can't use a bad means to a good end: you can't kill one human being to heal
another. So, as far as the tiny human being is concerned, the word
therapeutic is quite misleading. It isn't healthy at all.
Both cloning and embryonic stem cell
research are science used in the wrong way. Embryonic stem
cell research is akin to abortion because if destroys new human life, no
matter how tiny or undeveloped. The beginning of life is at
conception, not at implantation nor at any later time.
JR
With a Destiny Yon
Iowa’s meant for harvesting corn,
Not for cloning new life to slay,
Nor for harvesting cells unborn,
As those who govern, rule today.
The frontier of life is at conception;
Mistaken are those who’d this deny,
Those who follow a flawed perception,
And trespass on life, beclouded of eye.
The Creator of man won’t bless the state,
For crossing a border, to kill for a cell;
O ponder whether a similar fate
Could alight on us, the born as well...
Even if they call it research
To cure the ills of those more grown,
It does the souls of men besmirch,
To slay the unnamed, the tiny unknown.
The little ones, victims become,
When they to others fall prey;
For cellular parts they succumb,
In a cannibal kind of way...
Ne'er to be loved by another and missed,
Ne'er to have booties and blankets knit,
Ne'er to be held by a mother and kissed,
Because of bad law, signed and writ.
Be they a few cells or many of them,
They’re not to be aggressed upon;
The embryonic cells called stem,
Are knit to a soul, with a destiny yon...
–John Riedell
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