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27 Hofstra L. Rev. 639 (1998-1999)
Being Human: Cloning and the Challenges for Public Policy

handle is hein.journals/hoflr27 and id is 649 raw text is: BEING HUMAN: CLONING AND THE CHALLENGES FOR PUBLIC POLICY Karen H. Rothenberg* INTRODUCTION Ethicists, scientists, lawyers, theologians, and journalists responded with colorful scenarios when Dr. Ian Wilmut announced that he suc- cessfully cloned an adult mammal. In an effort to ethically fathom Dolly's significance, they imagined cloning as (1) a foreign despot's technique for creating a master race; (2) a greedy entrepreneur's tech- nique for producing celebrity embryos for sale; (3) a bereft parent's technique for replacing a dying child; (4) a desperate patient's technique for creating organs or tissue to harvest; and (5) a narcissist's technique for ensuring his immortality.' * Marjorie Cook Professor of Law and Director, Law and Health Care Program, University of Maryland School of Law; B.A., Princeton University, 1973; M.P.A., Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 1974; J.D., University of Virginia, 1979. This Essay is adapted from the prepared statement originally presented before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety, Committee on Labor and Human Resources on March 12, 1997. Footnotes have been added to provide additional sources and to incorporate re- cent developments. I want to thank Teresa K. LaMaster for her outstanding research and editorial assistance in the preparation of this Essay. 1. See generally George J. Annas, Human Cloning: A Choice or an Echo?, 23 U. DAYTON L. REV. 247, 255 (1998) (discussing Ira Levin's fictional novel, The Boys from Brazil, which de- picts an exiled Mengele creating 94 clones of Adolf Hitler); Declan Butler & Meredith Wadman, Calls for Cloning Ban Sell Science Short, 386 NATURE 8, 9 (1997) (quoting Richard Dawkins as saying that it would be mind-bogglingly fascinating to watch a younger edition of myself grow- ing up in the twenty-first century instead of the 1940s); Dena S. Davis, What's Wrong with Cloning?, 38 JURnmETRIcs 83, 87 (1997) (commenting on the common subject in celebrity cloning hypotheticals, basketball star Michael Jordan); John A. Robertson, Liberty, Identity, and Human Cloning, 76 TEX. L. REv. 1371, 1380-81 (1998) (stating that cloning embryos might also be used to provide tissue or organs for transplant to an aiready existing child); George J. Annas, Human Cloning: Should the United States Legislate Against It?, A.B.A. J., May 1997, at 80, 80 (discussing the popular suggestion that parents of a dying child should be able to clone the child for a replacement); Gina Kolata, Scientist Reports First Cloning Ever of Adult Mammal, N.Y. TIMES, Feb. 23, 1997, at Al (announcing the birth of Dolly).

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