Do they really believe what they say?

The Times Editorial Observer weighs in on the cloning issue:

"It always bears repeating that humans are only as rich as the diversity that surrounds them, whether we mean cultural or economic diversity. The same is true of genetic diversity, which is an essential bulwark against disease. These days there is less and less genetic diversity in the animals found on farms, and farmers themselves become less and less diverse because fewer and fewer of them actually own the animals they raise. They become contract laborers instead.

It is possible to preserve plant and crop diversity in seed banks. But there are no animal banks. Breeds of animals that are not raised die away, and the invaluable genetic archive they represent vanishes. This may look like a simple test of economic efficiency. It is really a colossal waste, of genes and of truly lovely, productive animals that are the result of years of human attention and effort. From one perspective, a cloned animal looks like a miracle of science. But from another, it looks like what it is: a dead end."

This is a very good argument regarding a subject that needs a lot more discussion. Now let's turn our attention to the homo sapien part of the same discussion and see how these same folks feel about the same type of manipulation of the human population, and the diversity of the human gene pool through cloning, in vitro, sperm banks, and all the other human reproductive freedoms we supposedly are in favor of......Don't you think we deserve the same consideration?