Other than the fear of new infectious diseases, most of these experiments are not as troublesome to me as harvesting embryonic stem cells or the prospect of cloning for harvesting stem cells and organs. It is obvious that humans are not being destroyed or enslaved. However, the experiments could lead to the production of "animals" with human parentage and the techniques for producing germ cells, those for "reproduction" in other animals' wombs and for cloning using oocytes from other species (in order to by-pass the necessity for human oocytes) seem intended to advance the worst of science fiction's predictions.
The guide should be that all offspring of human parents are themselves human enough to receive societal and governmental protection from killing and enslavement. (Of course, at least 30 years too late for that) Require the experimenter to prove that he is not harming a human life.
We've gone down the line too far in redefining who is "human" until even our own children are not given that protection in this country, and in other countries such as the Netherlands, no one is protected once their life becomes a "burden."
I can't come up with an ethical argument for prohibiting these experiments that will stand up past the "human embryos aren't human beings" and "it's not human cloning unless you produce a human baby" crowd.
It isn't that crowd we ought worry about, it is the average American voter who is not paying attention, casting ballots based on personalities rather than voting as a sovereign who must heed the moral and legal future of his Republic at stake. Therapeutic cloning will arrive legal if the amoral crowd (in Hollywood and elsewhere) can raise enough fretting without being called to accounts. The media is fully in cahoots with the liberalization and thus the mutating of this Republic that once feared and revered God. If humans can play at being godlike, the media will be free to go in any profitable direction they choose, without thinking first of the potential for destructive corrosion. Our court system isn't even a help in this, what with both political parties afraid to tackle the judicial activism.
Thanks for the ping. I posted the article on another board, as you must have seen.
Very good points you make.