Zhong Zhong (left) and Hua Hua are the first primate clones made by somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same process that created Dolly the sheep in 1996.

I’m feeling a bit weepy over this story today. Incredible progress. Chinese scientists have cloned monkeys using the same technology as was used in the 1990s to make Dolly the sheep. The monkeys (as you can see in the photo) are absurdly, ABSURDLY cute.

But if you read the article, you learn one of the reasons this is so important is because now they may be able to make genetically identical monkeys on which to find cures for human diseases.

This means all of these creatures will be created in order to be kept in a lab, infecting them with diseases and using them as learning tools to benefit us. Having a dad who died of cancer and a mom who lives with cancer and has had a number of different treatments, and who is always hopeful the next one will be the one to cure, I understand the logic behind why that is important. Why it may be needed.

But my heart breaks over it. I mean, I feel physically sick since reading it. The same way I feel when I see a truck carrying pigs/chickens/cows to slaughter. I don’t think it helped to include the photo of the monkeys—to put faces to a monstrous future. (Which is why I included them. Does it make anyone else sad?)

I’d like to think there’s another way for us to find cures but perhaps I’m naive.

And I know many don’t care: science is more important; agriculture is more important; our appetites are more important; our tastebuds are most important.

It simply makes my heart ache.