This sounds like an interesting essay ...

Some readers of this blog may be interested in this essay:

"Two Concepts of Immortality: Reframing Public Debate on
Stem-Cell Research"
Yale Journal of Law & Humanities, Vol. 14, No. 73, 2004

BY: FRANK A. PASQUALE
Seton Hall University
School of Law

Paper ID: Seton Hall Public Law Research Paper No. 14

Contact: FRANK A. PASQUALE
Email: Mailto:[email protected]
Postal: Seton Hall University
School of Law
One Newark Center
Newark, NJ 07102-5210 UNITED STATES

ABSTRACT:
Regenerative medicine seeks not only to cure disease, but also
to arrest the aging process itself. So far, public attention to
the new health care has focused on two of its methods: embryonic
stem-cell research and therapeutic cloning. Since both processes
manipulate embryos, they alarm those who believe life begins at
conception. Such religious objections have dominated headlines
on the topic, and were central to President George W. Bush's
decision to restrict stem-cell research.

Although they are now politically potent, the present
religious objections to regenerative medicine will soon become
irrelevant. Scientists are fast developing new ways of culturing
the biological materials now exclusively produced by embryos.
Given their expressed commitment to the "sanctity of life,"
religious leaders will soon find the tables turned: researchers
will accuse them of causing death if they fail to support
medicine that cures the sick without harming embryos.

Perhaps anticipating this development, those uneasy with
regenerative medicine have tried to shift the debate to focus on
its long-term effects. They believe that innovations that now
look benign might lead to an era of untrammeled biotechnological
manipulation of our lives. For example, the same technology used
to eliminate disease-causing genes or to clone embryos may
eventually be deployed to produce genetically engineered
children. That could, in turn, entrench class differences, since
only the wealthy could afford the most desirable genetic
enhancements.

Such objections may be speculative. Nevertheless, they deserve
more attention - not necessarily as predictions of the future,
but as indictments of the present. We are all disturbed by
hypothetical dystopias like Huxley's Brave New World. But their
most important flaws - the inequality, degradation, and moral
irresponsibility of their inhabitants - are already apparent in
the distribution of regenerative therapies. The world's
wealthiest nations spend hundreds of millions of dollars on
elaborate technologies of life-extension, while contributing
only trivially to efforts to assure basic medical care to the
poorest. Public debate on regenerative medicine must acknowledge
this inequality. Societies and individuals can invest in it in
good conscience only if they are seriously committed to
extending extant medicine to all.