"What the cloning debate allows us to do is to say, look, even some things that could help people raise grave ethical concerns."

The report comes as the cloning debate is again heating up in Washington.

"There's sort of a dry run here for the human cloning debate," he said.

The cloning debate is tangled up with another scientific controversy steeped in politics, that of embryonic stem cell research.

In the pilot program, themes were topical: President Clinton's troubles and the cloning debate, for example.

It is also true that the ethics of embryo research is relevant to the cloning debate.

Republicans have been privately discussing ways to force the cloning debate to the Senate floor by attaching an amendment to another bill.

In the states, as in Washington, emotions have run high in the cloning debate.

Some see the cloning debate as just another skirmish in the abortion war.

Ishiguro's contribution to the cloning debate turns out to be sleight of hand, eye candy, cover for his pathological need to be subtle.