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15 Temp. Int'l & Comp. L.J. 171 (2001)
Human Cloning: New Hope, New Implications, New Challenges

handle is hein.journals/tclj15 and id is 177 raw text is: HUMAN CLONIN:G: NEW HOPE, NEW IMPLICATIONS, NEW CHALLENGES INTRODUCTION Until recently, discussions about human cloning seemed farfetched. However, with the successful cloning of the sheep Dolly in 1997, it became evident that sooner or later, it may be possible to clone human beings.' With such possibility comes moral, cultural, scientific and legal implications. Ac- cordingly, there have been numerous commentaries and articles describing cloning both as an exciting step forward and as an attack on human dignity and morality.2 Whether or not to clone human beings is a difficult question. This Comment provides an understanding of why answers are hard and a ready solution is not at hand, and suggests ways to deal with cloning re- search. To that end, this paper is divided into three parts. Part I discusses Dolly's impact on biomedical research and describes early responses to Dolly. Part II explains the reasons for human cloning and suggests that hu- man cloning is an exciting step forward. Part III examines the reasons against human cloning and suggests that human cloning is an attack on hu- man dignity and morality. Finally, this Comment provides a balancing test and concludes that a sweeping ban on human cloning research is short- sighted. I. DOLLY'S IMPACT ON BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH To put the present state of debate on human cloning into perspective, Part I examines Dolly's impact on biomedical research. Part I is divided into two sections. The first section describes cloning technology and explains what is cloning. The second section discusses early responses to Dolly at the federal, state and international levels. A. What is Cloning? Cloning is an asexual reproduction by which experimenters create an identical replication or a duplicate copy of an already existing parent organ- ' See Erin M. Stepno, Successful Animal Cloning Raises Questions About Human Cloning Possibilities: Science Fiction No Longer, 29 MCGEORGE L. REV. 666, 674 (1998) (citing Dr. Ian Wilmut et. al., Viable Offspring Derived from Fetal and Adult Mammalian Cells, NATURE, Feb. 27, 1997, at 810). Recently, scientists in Oregon have successfully cloned monkeys using the method Dolly's creator used. See Shannon H. Smith, Note, Ig- norance is Not Bliss: Why a Ban on Human Cloning is Unacceptable, 9 HEALTH MATRIX 311, 312 (1999). While this accomplishment is not the same as cloning the more sophisti- cated cells of an adult mammal, the cloning of primates does move the technology closer to cloning human beings. See id. ' See Leon R. Kass & James Q. Wilson, The Ethics of Human Cloning, THE AEI PRESS (1998).

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