The Clones Got To Havard

The Houston Chronicle reports on a stem cell poll--53%Americans are in favor of doing research on stem cells taken from left over embryos. That's up from 48% in 2001.

The same poll shows that 56% of Americans oppose creating cloned embryos for research--which is exactly what researchers at Harvard want to do.

''This is exactly the kind of work that we envisioned for the Harvard Stem Cell Institute," said Harvard biologist Douglas Melton told the Boston Globe. ''We want new ways to study and hopefully cure diseases."

The crux of the argument for using embryonic stem cells--is that they come from embryos that will be discarded anyway. A move to cloning changes the entire dynamic of the debate.