Imagine a world in which animal-human hybrids and genetically enhanced post-humans roam the earth; eugenic techniques produce babies made-to-order; spare body parts from any number of cloned copies of yourself are farmed for your use; and a woman gives birth to genetic copies of herself, her dead parents, or her spouse.

The stuff of fantasy? One wishes it so. While the technology allowing such “innovations” is many decades away, some variant of the “Brave New World” author Aldous Huxley foretold is nearly upon us.

South Korean researchers have successfully created 30 cloned human embryos. Stem Cell Sciences and Biotransplant created the first pig-human hybrid embryo five years ago.

If this steady march advances unimpeded, it will represent, without a doubt, the most radical alteration of the human species — ever.

In a word, human cloning is one of the most significant threats ever posed to the integrity of the family, the intrinsic worth of human life, and our genetic and moral standing as human beings.

In light of this reality, I have introduced a bill that would prevent the state of Arizona from giving its imprimatur to the practice of human cloning by banning use of taxpayer money to support it.

“Therapeutic” cloning — creating and destroying cloned human embryos for medical research — remains unpopular: A recent Gallup Poll found that Americans oppose “cloning embryos for use in medical research” by 61 per cent to 34 per cent.

Even so, policymakers are often urged to ban “reproductive” cloning (the bringing-to-term of cloned human embryos, to produce a child) but to support “therapeutic” cloning because of the medical marvels it will yield — even though scores of top-flight scientists now attest that it is highly unlikely therapeutic cloning will ever become a feasible treatment for degenerative conditions.

The feeble hope is that cloned human embryos will never end up being brought to term, which would produce horrific human specimens that exhibit defective gene expression during embryonic development.

But even if reproductive cloning were banned and therapeutic cloning promoted, at least some of the potentially hundreds of thousands of cloned embryos produced for research would inevitably end up in uteruses and brought to term.

Moreover, contrary to the perception that “everyone opposes” reproductive cloning, many scientists salivate at the prospect. Sanctioning therapeutic cloning would shift the proverbial genie from the bottle (or the petri dish) to the womb and boost substantially the hopes of reproductive cloning enthusiasts.

They include Joseph Fletcher, considered the “patriarch of bioethics,” who has promoted reproductive cloning to create “superior people.”

Princeton University biology professor Lee M. Silver does not object to the notion of introducing, via cloning, “animal attributes…into the human genome”: Our sight might be enhanced by hawk genes, or firefly genes might enable us to grow “light emitting organs.”

Bioethicist John A. Robertson of the University of Texas writes of “quality control of offspring” — children as projects to be designed by their freely choosing parents, who want nothing but what society deems to be “the best.” “Most defective fetuses will be discarded,” he writes, “based on judgments of fitness, worth, or parental convenience.”

These are not isolated examples. Most of the influential biotechnology elite find reproductive cloning and the mixing of animal-human genes entirely acceptable.

This is part-and-parcel of the eugenic “transhumanist” movement, devoted to the vision of a more perfect “post-human” species, in which life is not of intrinsic worth or dignity but finds value in its capacity to nurture its unlimited potential.

Will our descendants emerge from human loins, or will they be asexually and genetically burnished to perfection in test tubes or discarded if “imperfect”?

Will we act now in resisting further degradations to our humanity, lest we face the prospect of fighting a rear-guard action on the Island of Dr. Moreau? Preventing our great and good state from funding human cloning is one step in forestalling our steady slide into a post-human future.

Rep. Bob Stump, R-9, represents Sun City, Peoria and Glendale in the Arizona House of Representatives. He can be reached at bstump@azleg.state.az.us.