Cloning and Judges

Wesley Smith reacts to the South Korean cloners.

The latest to change his tune is Woo Suk Hwang. When he manufactured the first human cloned embryos, he admitted that the "products" of cloning were embryos and indeed, that "this technique [therapeutic cloning] can not be separated from reproductive people cloning..."

That was then. Now, having manufactured more human cloned embryos, he apparently has received his talking points: "I can say this result is not an embryo but a 'nuclear transfer construct'."

Last night I saw on NBC News I saw Hwang try to say with a straight face that he was convinced he wasn't creating human beings. Nice try. I was, however, somewhat impressed by how NBC Nightly News covered this story. They didn't try to hide the truth like some news stories and even provided time for two people on opposing sides of this issue to discuss their views.

Blogicus informs me that the British scientists aren't too far behind in the dash to create cloned human beings.

Rich Lowry on the glass ceiling imposed on conservative female judges by liberal groups.

The logic of the Democratic position entails a kind of inverse Leninism — better is worse. The more attractive a nominee's personal story, the more imperative it is to oppose him or (especially) her. Democrats might have filibustered California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown anyway, but her fate was surely and truly sealed by the fact that she is black, was raised by sharecroppers in segregationist Alabama, and worked her way through law school as a single mother after her first husband died. This background screams "attractive U.S. Supreme Court nominee." So for the left, Brown is "a dangerous black woman."

Here's an actual extreme nominee.