Reflections on Human Cloning
![handle is hein.journals/hoflr27 and id is 669 raw text is: REFLECTIONS ON HUMAN CLONING
Lewis D. Solomon*
I. ITRODUCTION
I start from the premise that in the twenty-first century we will
have perfected human cloning as a medical technique. Perhaps much
sooner than any of us realize, we will see nearly identical genetic repli-
cas of humans.'
For purposes of this Essay, I assume that the human cloning proc-
ess will be physically safe and that the genetic knockoffs, as children
and adults, will be healthy. They will not age faster than normal or suc-
cumb prematurely to diseases of old age.2 Based on this assumption, I
conclude that neither state nor national governments (nor international
bodies), should intervene, whether by regulation or outright prohibition,
to stop what we will be capable of doing to help heterosexual or homo-
sexual couples or individuals.
Human cloning offers a number of beneficent scenarios. It will
help infertile couples or those facing a high risk of conceiving children
* Theodore Rinehart Professor of Business Law, The George Washington University Law
School. I gratefully acknowledge the research assistance of John Miller, Reference Librarian, Ja-
cob Bums Law Library, The George Washington Law School in the preparation of this Essay.
1. See Michael Waldholz, Cloning of Humans Grows Increasingly Possible, WALL ST. J.,
Dec. 18, 1998, at B12. In fact, a group of South Korean scientists claimed that they already
cloned a human cell from an infertile woman, creating a four-cell embryo that theoretically could
have grown into a genetically identical replica of the woman. Sheryl WuDunn, South Korean
Scientists Say They Cloned a Human Cell, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 17, 1998, at A12. The scientists
stopped short of implanting the embryo into a woman to carry to term, thus making it uncertain
whether the human embryo would have developed into a human fetus. See id. Moreover, while the
data and research of the South Korean scientists has not been reviewed by other scientists, experts
in the United States said that... the requisite [cloning] techniques had been demonstrated in ani-
mals and that there was no theoretical reason they could not be applied to people. Id. (emphasis
added).
2. See GiNA KOLATA, CLONE: THE ROAD TO DOLLY, AND THE PATH AHEAD 239-42 (1998)
(discussing and disagreeing with the argument that a clone may have a life span only as long as
that which the donor had left, and that the clone would be more likely to develop diseases such as
cancer at a younger age because of the already mutated donor genes).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hoflr27&div=35&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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