Our Bodies, Ourselves? Of Course Not!

Today a group made of liberal, pro-choice advocates held a press conference in Washington, DC, to speak out in favor of a proposed ban on cloning for research purposes. Once again, pro-choice advocates demonstrated that they really do not believe that women have the right to control their bodies and make their own reproductive decisions.

A group calling itself the Center for Genetic and Society has obtained 100 signatures on a petition in support of the bill which includes some prominent pro-choice feminists and liberals. There’s Judy Norsigian, author of Our Bodies, Ourselves; Alice J. Dan of the federally-funded Center of Excellence in Women’s Health at the University of Illinois; Barbara Dudley, former executive director of Greenpeace USA; Todd Gitlin, the former radical activist and now a professor at New York University; Tom Hayden, former radical activist; left wing radio commentator Jim Hightower; and a host of others.

The petition they signed not only calls for an outright ban on bringing a cloned human to term which makes sense given the limits of the technology at the moment, but also calls for a moratorium on the cloning of human embryos for research purposes. The petition says,

Second, the United States should enact a moratorium on the creation of clonal human embryos for research purposes (often prematurely called “therapeutic cloning”). The widespread creation of clonal embryos would increase the risk that a human clone would be born, and would further open the door to eugenic procedures. Fortunately, important research on embryonic stem cells does not yet require the use of clonal embryos. A moratorium would allow time for alternatives to research cloning to be investigated, for policy makers and the public to make informed judgments, and for regulatory structures to be established to oversee applications that society might decide are acceptable. A moratorium on research cloning is a middle ground between the two positions of an immediate permanent ban and an unconstrained green light.

So much for my body, my choice. Norsigian is the grossest offender. According to The New York Times, “She fears the science will place an undue burden on the women who donate their eggs for the experiments.” Of course isn’t this simply a rewording of the case against abortion, that society will put pressure on women to abort their fetuses? Norsigian is simply reverting to the anti-abortion claim that women cannot possibly make free choices about whether or not to terminate a pregnancy.

Similarly, a lot of the signers of this petition are clearly uncomfortable with what they mistakenly call potential “eugenics” — manipulating fetuses to have one characteristic or another. But wait a minute — I though pro-choice advocates did not think that fetuses had any rights at all. All of a sudden, it is still okay to kill an embryo but not for scientists to clone that same embryo to conduct research? These folks are trying to talk out of both sides of their mouths.

This is why the pro-choice movement is doomed in the long run. Too many people in that movement do not have any sort of philosophical view that informs their beliefs on abortion, but rather simply have a gut reaction in favor it (in many cases, I suspect, simply because the Right generally opposes abortion). Contrary to the rhetoric, few people in the pro-choice movement really believe that men and women should have complete control over matters of reproduction.

The only difference between the pro-choice movement and the pro-life movement is merely a minor disagreement over which group gets to control men and women’s reproductive options.

Sources:

Some for Abortion Rights Lean Right in Cloning Fight. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, The New York Times, January 24, 2002.

Liberal anti-cloners up to bat. Kristen Philipkoski, Wired, March 19, 2002.

Open Letter To U.S. Senators On Human Cloning And Eugenic Engineering. Center for Genetic and Society, March 19, 2002.

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