Dear Mullah Dobson,
You want freedom of religion. You got it.

Here’s a great Q&A with the South Korean scientists who perfected SCNT or “therapeutic cloning” last week. Woo Suk Hwang’s final quote about his religious justification for human cloning is righteous. (The interview was published about a year-and-a-half ago in the NYT.)

Keep Your Laws of My Body! I’m Pro-Cloning:

Q. Leon R. Kass, the bioethics adviser to President Bush, said that he would like to see your type of research banned in the United States. What is your reaction?

WOO SUK HWANG Our goal has never been to create cloned human babies, but to find the causes of incurable diseases and to offer a new window for cures.

SHIN YONG MOON Professor Hwang and I have called for a ban on reproductive cloning. We don't want people using our techniques to make human beings. We urge every nation to prepare a law as soon as possible to prevent human cloning. As a scientist, I think reproductive cloning should be banned.

Q. What do you think would happen to American science if all cloning were banned?

MOON If all human cloning will be prohibited here, that would be a problem for American science. Stem cell research [which cloning facilitates] is very important for understanding the basic science of human development. And it is also very important for new drug evaluations. So biotechnology development not all of it, but some would be delayed and hindered in the United States.

Q. Do you have problems with your own government over your work?

HWANG I can answer your question like this: If Korea were to prohibit therapeutic cloning research, we would have to go to other countries where it is permitted Singapore, mainland China, maybe Great Britain. But my hope is that the Korean government will give us the license to do this kind of research. If they don't, we will move.

Right now we are stopping our work for a short while and thinking about what we shall do next. We'd like to discuss this with our government. We'd like to have their confidence on this kind of research. Then we'll start again.

You know, almost half of our research team is Christian, including Dr. Moon, who is Methodist. At the lab, we have discussed why we have to do this work. We have asked ourselves, Is there any way to achieve the treatment of some incurable diseases without therapeutic cloning? The answer is, It is a scientist's responsibility to do this research because it is for a good purpose.

Q. What is the religious tradition you come from, Professor Hwang?

HWANG I am Buddhist, and I have no philosophical problem with cloning. And as you know, the basis of Buddhism is that life is recycled through reincarnation. In some ways, I think, therapeutic cloning restarts the circle of life.