...The focus on therapeutic cloning has been aimed at our heartstrings, prophesying cures for our loved ones, friends, and even movie stars. But what about the women who will be required even for these apparently noble intentions? Advocates of embryonic stem cell research are poised to create an industry built on the bodies of millions of women. The industry needs women because it needs our eggs. Somatic cell nuclear transfer involves transferring the nucleus from one of the specialized cells in the human body into an egg in which its own nucleus has been removed. No matter whether the clones or embryos are created for research or reproductive purposes, they must be created by using a woman's egg.Dr. David Prentice, formerly a professor of life sciences at Indiana State University, now at the Family Research Council, has crunched the numbers to show how many women would be involved just to cure diabetes. To date, the highest cloning efficiency with animals has been 20-30 percent. This means about 50 eggs per animal treatment are required. In the US, there are 17 million diabetes patients. Given the best successes with animal cloning, scientists would have to obtain a minimum of 850 million eggs, harvested from at least 85 million women. Scientist Peter Membaerts gives an even higher estimate of 100 eggs per treatment. According to the 2000 census, there are about 60 million American women of reproductive age. Where will the other eggs come from? And would all 60 million American women be amenable to this?...
Then Director of Life and Women's Issues for the Family Research Council, Dr. Pia de Solenni, gave a provcative presentation to the Massachusetts State Legislature's Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies regarding adult stem cell research and embryonic stem cell research on February 16, 2005. The above paragraphs are excerpts from her two page testimony available at this FRC page.
