PROP. 71 DOUBLE THREAT: TAXPAYERS, ETHICS SUFFER.

Byline: Tad Cronn

I don't know if my heart can take all this living on the edge.

It's positively breathtaking living here in California, what with all the technological and social breakthroughs we've always made on a regular basis. But until recently I never imagined that this fast-paced decade of the Noughties (that's Australian, mate) would offer me the opportunity to live in a state with legalized slavery. And I would just like, in advance, to thank all of you who are going to vote for Proposition 71, the stem-cell initiative, for giving me that opportunity.

I really have to admire the craftsmanship that went into writing Proposition 71. It's a masterpiece of deception, an archetype of skulduggery that efficiently dispatches honest science and genuine ethical concerns and gets right about its real business: paving the way for private corporations to make tons of money while bribing taxpayers with promises of a nonspecific share of patent royalties.

After all, it says right up front that none of the funds approved under the initiative will be used for ``reproductive human cloning.'' That means that cloning won't be allowed, right?

Thanks for playing.

Read a little further, and you'll find a description of the authorized sources for the magical ``pluripotent'' stem cells: something called ``somatic cell nuclear transfer.'' In English, that's also known as - ta da! - cloning.

The trick, the real sinister beauty of this bit of chicanery, is that it can ban cloning and not ban cloning at the same time by means of a simple verbal handoff. The initiative bans ``reproductive human cloning'' - i.e., the sort of cloning that would allow a clone to be implanted in a mother, be born and potentially grow into a dangerously productive citizen.

The ``somatic cell nuclear transfer,'' however, is what's called ``therapeutic cloning,'' meaning the sort of cloning in which a lab can make hundreds of thousands of tiny humans and drop them in a blender with no one the wiser and no one caring. After all, ``therapeutic'' is neither ``reproductive'' nor ``human,'' and it sounds so much more soothing.

The proposition goes on to initially ban research with adult stem cells and umbilical cord stem cells, which, technically speaking, are the only kinds of stem cells that have produced any significant results and which - again, picking nits - have numerous advantages over embryonic stem cells.

But let's not quibble over trifles. The important thing is to forge blindly ahead and make everybody think that Michael J. Fox will be able to film ``Back to the Future IV'' and that Christopher Reeve, were he still alive, could have walked again only through the use of embryonic stem cells.

(And if we can clean out the fridge at fertility clinics while making a whole bunch of unelected bureaucrats, doctors and business people $3 billion richer in the process, so much the better.)

The proposition is a little vague about exactly how many clones will be churned out to produce Dr. Frankenstein's Miracle Tonic, but I should think that we might want to go slowly at first. After all, one Timmy for the blender is a curiosity, and 10 rate a five-second mention on the evening news, but at some point - One hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? - some people might start confusing our patented, prettily packaged embryonic commodity with - oh, what's that old-fashioned phrase? - a race.

Of course, we could skirt that whole issue by simply declaring embryos an entirely different species (although then we'd have to buy off the wrath of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). It should be simple: Just demonstrate the clearly vast genetic differences between embryos and ``real'' humans.

Who could argue with that? The embryos sure won't.

They won't complain. They won't refuse. They won't rebel. They'll just sit there being inconveniently, microscopically alive - as always. And honestly, if they won't stand up for themselves, why should we stand up for them?

Maybe we could spare a few of these embryos - there are bound to be extras - and let them mature so they could be of use in the service industries. I'm sure there must be some cotton fields that need a-pickin' around here somewhere.