When it comes to writing about New Jersey's deadly plans for embryonic stem cell research, I try to steer clear of cloning.

People fluent in the language of the bill that opened the door to this Draconian approach to research have been beating the drums on the cloning angle since way before it became law.

But when you try to broach the subject with people who aren't fluent in stem cell language and regard embryonic research as the key to the miracle cure we've all been waiting for, their eyes glaze over. They dismiss cloning as so much sci-fi babble.

Legislators don't like to admit it, but, the New Jersey bill includes the taxpayer funding of cloning, gestation and destruction of human embryos until at least the period of eight weeks.

Cloning is part and parcel of the November ballot referendum asking us to earmark $450 million of our tax dollars for research and a whole lot of us find that morally objectionable.

The language of the bill is deliberately obtuse but it's not sci-fi babble and after what happened in England last week, I'm thinking that we really need to focus on cloning as we gear up to fight the bonding referendum.

Admittedly, what happened in England is probably in the realm of weird science as far as most people are concerned but it set off all my alarm bells. In case you haven't heard, British regulators agreed on Sept. 5 to permit in principal the creation of hybrid human-animals for research into such illnesses as Parkinson's, motor neuron disease and Alzheimer's.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said it had agreed to allow a specific kind of cloned inter-species hybrid, created by injecting human DNA into a hollowed-out animal egg cell.

The resulting "cytoplasmic hybrid" embryo or "cybrid" would be 99.9 percent human and 0.1 percent animal.

Even though everyone quoted in a huge wash of articles on this development predicted actual work with and results from such research was way down the line, this is moving way too fast for me.

What happens in England never stays in England. It jumps right across the pond so I began to think about what the impact of this all could be for us.

I called Marie Tasy and Katherin Rogers, two people fluent in this complex language for insight and advice.

Tasy is the executive director of New Jersey Right to Life. Rogers, who also happens to be my sister-in-law, is an associate philosophy professor at the University of Delaware and a member of Catholic Scholars of Delaware.

She is one of the spokespersons on ethical issues, including stem cell and cloning, for the Diocese of Wilmington.

Both Tasy and Rogers have been consistently out front on the cloning issue and consider that it stands at the heart of the embryonic stem cell debate. They have written and spoken often on the moral and ethical implications of cloning.

Tasy reflected for just a moment when I read off the news stories about the British decision. "There is nothing in New Jersey law that would prohibit such research here," she said. "This has been a concern of ours for a very long time and I have been sounding the warning bells for a long time.

"New Jersey law does permit somatic cell transfer (cloning) and the rule of law here is that unless something is specifically excluded, it can be allowed," she said. "This is definitely true in this case when you are opening the door to all kinds of manipulation of human life.

"There are loopholes that may not have even been part of the original intent. There is the danger of legislators getting involved who don't understand the ramifications of their actions," Tasy said. "In this case, there are dire implications for the future of humanity as we know it."

Rogers, who has written extensively on cloning, referred to cases where legislation has tried to hide the problem by "illegitimately" renaming the "entities and processes in question."

She noted that like New Jersey's law, proposed legislation in Delaware was an example because, as initially written, it aimed to permit and protect the creation of human embryos by cloning as long as the embryos would be destroyed before coming to term.

In an op-ed piece to Delaware newspapers, she pointed out that "while language changes constantly and renaming is often legitimate or at least harmless, in the case of cloning legislation, the burden of proof is on those who would adopt new terminology."

In New Jersey, as Tasy has consistently noted, that burden has never been met.

The New Jersey plan has brought us to the brink of "crossing lines that should never be crossed. Once we've crossed those lines to creating and manipulating life, we've opened wide the door to other abuses," Tasy said.

We still have time to close that door, Tasy said. "We need to go back and start from the beginning. We need to look at the track record of stem cell research. The track record right now is 73 diseases successfully treated with adult stem cell research and zero for embryonic research.

"To the extent that we can stop embryonic research, we must. It's pie in the sky and cloning is set to be a major part of it. It's taking us to a place we shouldn't be. The point is that when it comes to the sanctity of human life, there are absolutes."