WASHINGTON, May 7, 2002 (LSN.ca) – Dr. John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University, one of the discoverers of human embryonic stem cells, told the President’s Council on Bioethics on April 25, 2002, that he thinks the product of cloning is and should be called an “embryo.” Gearhart, a major proponent of research on human embryos, admits this fact in government transcripts which are available online.
He said: “I know that you are grappling with this [question of whether a cloned embryo created in the lab is the same thing as an embryo produced by egg and sperm, and whether we should call it an “embryo”], but anything that you construct at this point in time that has the properties of those structures to me is an embryo, and we should not be changing vocabulary at this point in time. It doesn’t change some of the ethical issues involved.” From www.bioethics.gov/transcripts.html , transcript for April 25, 2002: https://www.bioethics.gov/meetings/200204/0425.doc