RON REAGAN’S SPEECH at the Democratic convention last night was expected to urge expanded funding for stem cell research using so-called “spare” embryos–and to highlight these cells’ potential for treating the Alzheimer’s disease that took his father’s life.

He did neither. He didn’t even mention Alzheimer’s, perhaps because even strong supporters of embryonic stem cell research say it is unlikely to be of use for that disease. (Reagan himself admitted this on a July 12 segment of MSNBC’s Hardball.) And he didn’t talk about current debates on funding research using existing embryos. Instead he endorsed the more radical agenda of human cloning –mass-producing one’s own identical twins in the laboratory so they can be exploited as (in his words) “your own personal biological repair kit” when disease or injury strikes.