The Reality of Human Cloning

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The Reality of Human Cloning

As aptly put by Rosa Beddington, the word “clone” has become one of the most emotive of all the terms coined by scientists which have entered popular vocabulary. I shall add another, and that will be the phrase “Dolly the sheep”. The conception of Dolly, the “baby” of scientist Ian Wilmut and his team has opened the possibility of cloning humans. The mention of Dolly brings to average the person, haunting connotations of “future replicas of living megalomaniacs and the resurrected dead”. Indeed, Dolly has provided misconceptions about cloning, which, to a certain extent is skewed.

Deliberate cloning is as old as horticulture itself and is nothing new. It has yielded numerous benefits, particularly in the area of medicine and horticulture. So has other breakthrough scientific discoveries like In- vitro fertilization (IVF) and organ transplants. The fear factor with regards to cloning is only this: cloning humans. Recent newspaper articles report on the cloning of embryos in China. (The Straits Times 2/8/02) The possibility is very real and the i...

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