A Clone of Your Own? by Arlene Judith Klotzko, Oxford University Press, 拢12.99, ISBN 0192803093 Reviewed by James Kingsland
PEOPLE talk a lot of nonsense about human cloning. There are those like the Raelians and Panos Zavos, a fertility expert in Kentucky, who claim to have done it and expect us to take their word for it. Then there are those who say it is unethical to 鈥渃opy鈥� a human, or there is a risk evil people will create a 鈥渃lone in a cupboard鈥� that they would later harvest for compatible spare parts.
The truth is that, despite having a genetic makeup identical to his or her progenitor, a clone would grow up to be a unique human, and they would be entitled to the same legal protection as everyone else. Bioethicist and lawyer Arlene Judith Klotzko makes lots of common-sense points like these in A Clone of Your Own? As scientists in South Korea reveal to an overexcited world how they produced 30 cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from one (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1094515), her book provides a welcome reality check. Klotzko is not afraid to raise her head above the parapet. 鈥淚t seems to me intellectually and morally incoherent to accept IVF and reject therapeutic cloning,鈥� she writes. And, sticking her neck out further, adds: 鈥淩eproductive cloning is an option that should be kept open for couples where both parties are infertile, if and when cloning becomes safe.鈥�
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Of course, that鈥檚 a huge 鈥渋f鈥�, because no regulatory authority would approve reproductive cloning while the dangers to the health of the resulting child are so great. We can鈥檛 understand, let alone prevent, the 鈥渆pigenetic鈥� flaws that blight the short lives of many cloned animals. All we know is they somehow result from the failure of the donor egg to correctly reprogram the adult nucleus. In the meantime, Klotzko can find no practical or ethical objection to therapeutic cloning.