Dr. West says: “Ethical debates often center over two separate lines of reasoning. Deontological debates are, by nature, focused on our duty to God or our fellow human being. Teleological arguments focus on the question of whether the ends justify the means. Most scholars agree that human ES [embryonic stem] cell technology and therapeutic cloning offer great pragmatic merit, that is, the teleological arguments in favor of ES and NT [cloning] technologies are quite strong. The lack of agreement, instead, centers on the deontological arguments relating to the rights of the blastocyst embryo and our duty to protect the individual human life.

“I would argue that the lack of consensus is driven by a lack of widespread knowledge of the facts regarding the origins of human life on a cellular level and human life on a somatic and individual level. So the question of when does life begin, is better phrased ‘when does an individual human life begin.’ Some dogmatic individuals claim with the same certainty the Church opposed Galileo's claim that the earth is not the center of the universe, that an individual human life begins with the fertilization of the egg cell by the sperm cell. This is superstition, not science. The belief that an individual human being begins with the fertilization of the egg cell by the sperm cell is without basis in scientific fact or, for that matter, without basis in religious tradition.”

West’s long explanation denying the humanity of his cloned embryos includes these statements, “We now know that life evolved from such single-celled organisms that dominated all life some one billion years ago,” and “Biological life, that is to say, ‘cellular life’ has no recent beginnings.” There is a clear effort to come up with a new category which some scientists and ethicists are calling “pre-embryos” (which, however, would become human if allowed to develop). Ronald Green, head of the company’s ethics board, says he favors the term “activated egg.”

The claim that an embryo produced by cloning is not really an embryo, so that it may be experimented on, is arbitrary and “self-serving,” according to embryologist Jonathan Van Blerkom of the University of Colorado. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops provides numerous references from contemporary, standard textbooks on embryology which conflict with West’s view. 

Princeton professor Lee Silver has stated: “Cloned children will be full-fledged human beings, indistinguishable in biological terms from all other members of the species. Thus, the notion of a soulless clone has no basis in reality.”

West’s testimony still skirts the issue of the great promise, and perhaps even sufficiency for his goals, of adult stem cell research. Note that he leaves this question hanging in this statement of his:

“All strategies to source human cells for the purposes of transplantation have their own unique ethical problems. Because developing embryonic and fetal cells and tissues are ‘young’ and are still in the process of forming mature tissues, there has been considerable interest in obtaining these tissues for use in human medicine. However, the use of aborted embryo or fetal tissue raises numerous issues ranging from concerns over increasing the frequency of elected abortion to simple issues of maintaining quality controls standards in this hypothetical industry. Similarly, obtaining cells and tissues from living donors or cadavers is also not without ethical issues. For instance, an important question is, ‘Is it morally acceptable to keep "deceased" individuals on life support for long periods of time in order to harvest organs as they are needed?’ ”