But tell people that in the 21st century parents will still have to take responsibility for their children and people will still have to take responsibility for doing sensible things if we want a healthy, strong America. Help us lead the way in this fight. The extraordinary promise of science and technology carries with it extraordinary responsibilities for those who seek to advance the promise. It is incumbent upon both scientists and public servants to ensure that science serves humanity always, and never the other way around. Recently, like most Americans, I learned the troubling news that a member of the scientific community claims to be laying plans to clone a human being.
Human cloning raises deep ethical concerns.
There is virtually unanimous consensus in the scientific and medical communities that attempting to use known cloning techniques to actually create a human being is untested, unsafe, and morally unacceptable. Recently, the Senate voted to take the time necessary to carefully craft a bill that will ban the cloning of human beings while preserving our ability to use cloning technology for morally acceptable and medically important purposes. Already, scientists have given us the scientific foundation for this debate. I thank you for that, and I urge you to continue to play an important role as the Senate, and then the House, considers this very significant issue in the coming year. In spite of the pitfalls and the perils, our nation has always believed that what scientists do would always transform our world for the better in the end.