... in principle. But it would be stupid and irresponsible to attempt to do so now, while the technology itself is still in the embryonic stage. It's stupid, equally fundamental groups like the Raelians that make the rest of us pro-reproductive cloning folks look bad...
But that's an issue for another day, which the world is not yet ready for.
What the world is ready for, however, is therapeutic cloning. While the Bush administration is taking the moral high road of the religious right, it's just falling further and further behind as China and other countries in southeast Asia are proceeding forward, regardless. Europe's been making advances, too, but not nearly as many as Asia. The US, which has long been renowned as the nation making medical breakthroughs, could be poised to take this new technology by storm and reap its benefits if it weren't for Dubya. God knows we have the trained scientists for it; after all, so many American-educated scientists have been offered (and have taken) positions in China, where their know-how is desired...
And yeah, this Bush space thing. I never got to write that entry, but, long story short, mark my words and mark them well - if Bush even actually restarts the space program, it will, ultimately, be only to achieve military ends and to compete militarily with (or even nip in the bud) the rising programs of China and (eventually) the EU. The US has been content to rest on its laurels for the past twenty or so years while we maintained clear space superiority, but now that other nations are opening programs we have to restart ours to maintain that superiority. You wait and see, and I can guarantee you that's the primary reason someone on Bush's advisory team (because he doesn't have the brains to think of it himself) is telling him to pursue it. The only other reason might be because his daddy said he'd do so in the first place. Then again, that goes back to the military; months after Bush the First announced a plan to restart the space program, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War came to an end, and a competing space program became a moot point. As much as I wish it were otherwise, everything any country has ever done regarding space was driven by the military (or general rah-rah nationalism) first and science second (bear in mind, I'm not casting judgment as to whether doing so is right or wrong; I'm just stating a fact). I challenge anyone to prove otherwise. This time around, I highly doubt things are any different, especially with Dubya at the reigns.
That's not technology for the people. Not by a long shot. Technology for the people is therapeutic cloning, environmental technologies, medicine - especially cheaper medicine - for all and clean energy. It isn't pushing for the eventual development of X-Wings, or pumping money into the National Science Foundation with the same attitude that Trent Lott has when he hires a black work force just so people won't call him a racist.
Science and fundamentalism have never and will never mix. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.