About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

27 Hofstra L. Rev. 579 (1998-1999)
The Demand for Human Cloning

handle is hein.journals/hoflr27 and id is 589 raw text is: THE DEMAND FOR HUMAN CLONING Eric A. Posner* and Richard A. Posner** I. INTRODUCTION The news that a sheep (Dolly) had been created by cloning adult nonreproductive tissue' has given rise to speculation that it may soon be feasible to create human beings in the same way. In fact, substantial technical obstacles remain to be overcome,2 but no doubt they will be in time. The prospect of human cloning is ferociously controversial.3 The controversy presupposes that if human cloning were safe, reliable, and permitted there would be a demand for it. For if there would be no de- mand, why worry? More realistically, if the demand would be slight, or * Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School. ** Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and Senior Lec- turer, University of Chicago Law School. The Authors thank Hector Acevedo-Polanco, Emlyn Eisenach, Sorin Feiner, Gertrud Fremling, Dan Kahan, Leo Katz, William Landes, Martha Nussbaum, Charlene Posner, Reed Shuldiner, Robert Trivers, and participants in the University of Chicago's Workshop on Rational Models in the Social Sciences for many helpful comments on a previous draft of this Essay, and Susan Burgess, Acevedo-Polanco, Feiner, and Brady Mickelsen for helpful research assistance. This is an expanded version of The Demand for Human Cloning, which originally ap- peared in Clones and Clones: Facts and Fantasies About Human Cloning (Martha C. Nussbaum & Cass R. Sunstein eds., 1998) and is reprinted here with permission of the Authors and W.W. Nor- ton & Company, Inc. All footnotes have been adapted to conform with law review citation style. 1. See I. Wilmut et al., Viable Offspring Derived from Fetal and Adult Mammalian Cells, 385 NATURE 810 (1997). For a popular treatment, see Ruth Macklin, Human Cloning? Don't Just Say No, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REP., Mar. 10, 1997, at 64, 64. The technique involves replacing the nucleus of an ovum with the nucleus of a cell of the animal to be cloned. The ovum is then im- planted in a womb, where it grows into a baby in the normal way. When we speak of cloning in this Essay we mean the method by which Dolly was created, that is, by the cloning of adult non- reproductive tissue from a single animal or human being. The possibility of cloning an adult hu- man being gives new meaning to the term single parent. 2. See Whatever Next?, ECONOMIST, Mar. 1, 1997, at 79, 79. 3. See, e.g., Leon R. Kass, The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why We Should Ban the Cloning of Humans, NEW REPUBLIC, June 2, 1997, at 17. For an earlier treatment, when cloning was foreseen but not yet within reach, see PAUL RAMSEY, FABRICATED MAN: THE ETHICS OF GENETIC CONTROL 60-103 (1970).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most