From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Wed Nov 27 2002 - 19:15:42 MST
http://www.msnbc.com/news/840252.asp
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/SciTech/reuters20021126_409.html
Dr Antorini's (the "let's clone a baby as soon as we can guy)
is making news again this time saying it looks like the first
human clone could be born in early January.
Unfortunately, the evidence with non-human clones to date
doesn't augur particularly well for this particular baby's good
health, and that, in my view, is the strongest moral argument
against reproductive cloning.
Ironically, as people with a more than tabloid understanding
of genetics realise, people are more than the result of their
genes alone and if a healthy human clone was born it would
go a long way after a few years of intense media interest to
dispelling the popular misconception that cloning represents
some apocalyptic challenge to human dignity and specialness.
In the short term, however, biological knowledge being what
it is, such early attempts at reproductive cloning are likely
to do for reproductive biology, embryonic stem cell work,
and "therapeutic cloning" and the ethical and political discussion
thereof what the discovery of the Piltdown Hoax did for
palaeontology.
Brett
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