Cloning unites left and right in US

As the cloning issue headed for the US Senate, peculiar alliances of hitherto sworn opponents are emerging in the debate. As the New York Times reports, radical feminist author Judy Norsigian has aligned herself with her traditional anti-abortion enemies not just on the issue of reproductive cloning, but on creating cloned embryos for research too. Norsigian fears that the much talked of promise of therapeutic cloning will put undue pressure upon women to donate their eggs for research.

Judy Norsigian is not alone in her concerns about cloning research. Others, more concerned with the commercial involvement in cloning research, include Norman Mailer and a raft of women's health advocates, sociologists and liberal political theorists.

However, alliances seem to be working the other way as well. Some political conservatives are rumoured to be considering their position on therapeutic cloning in the light of its potential to treat a wide range of human illnesses. Pro-research advocate, Daniel Perry of the Alliance for Aging Research, expects a number of conservatives to support cloning research, as they did in last summer's debates in Congress.

Meanwhile, President Bush made a live telephone address to an anti-abortion rally in Washington DC, pledging his support for an end to federal funding of abortion services and of cloning research. Senator Sam Brownback backed Bush up on the cloning issue, saying 'we should not create life just to destroy it'.