Posted: Sun May 19 2002
Bush Hopes Cloning Ban Will Prevent Future Science Fiction Movie Plots

The President has asked the Senate to forbid the cloning of human embryos either for research or reproductive purposes, saying any reason for human cloning would be unethical, and may bring about scary things he's seen in movies.

"Our children are gifts to be loved and protected, not products to be designed and manufactured," Bush said. "Allowing cloning would be taking a significant step toward a society in which human beings are grown for spare body parts and children are engineered to custom specifications -- and that's not acceptable."

For evidence to back his ideas, Bush pointed to scary science fiction movies like The Boys from Brazil, Blade Runner, and the new Star Wars installment Attack of the Clones. Bush also noted that he had seen clones used for body parts in several episodes of Star Trek.

"It's unethical because they [the clones] will be engineered to be perfect warriors and will forced to fight wars with laser blasters that go Zzzzzzz-zap or bweeeew bweeeew. It also inevitable that they will turn against us and kill us," explained Bush.