[J. Neil Schulman]

Motherbear wrote: "Yes, you are a writer, and you knew exactly what you were doing when you used religious words to describe something abhorrent to many religious people. You may not be liberal, but it is a typical liberal ploy, nevertheless. There is nothing "holy" about killing preborn babies--at any stage, and that is what will happen when we start "experimenting" with cloning."

I agree that there's nothing holy about killing preborn babies. But if the soul enters the body at birth and the preborn lack souls, there may not be anything unholy about terminating a pregnancy, either. That is a theological question which has two wellworn sides, and I need to point out to you that the Old Testament view is that the soul enters with a baby's first breath -- a view also propounded by many Christian church fathers throughout history.

Which is beside the point since at no point in my article did I suggest experimenting on human embryos.

I did suggest that cloning technology might protect the holiness of a marriage from adulteration by outsiders -- fertilization from sperm other than the husband's, donated ova, or even an adopted embryo -- and while cloning procedures enabling the keeping of reproduction within a marriage might be a new thought for you, I think my point is valid and my use of the term "holy" is not mere rhetoric without substance.

One more general point. I don't concern myself with who might be offended by my writing, whether they're religious or not. God is holy; religion, being a human handicraft, isn't.