Ignorance is not bliss: why a ban on human cloning is unacceptable.
S H Smith · PubMed · 1999
CLONING IS NOT A NEW TECHNIQUE.In fact, clones, "precise genetic cop [ies] of a molecule, cell, plant, animal, or human being," 1 have been around for years.Genetically identical copies of whole organisms in plant breeding, known as varieties, are commonplace.Additionally, some forms of invertebrates, such as certain kinds of worms, can regenerate another entire organism from a small piece of themselves.3 While vertebrates do not have this ability, the cloning of vertebrates does occur naturally through the formation and birth of identical twins.4 The first artificially occurring clone was created in the 1970s when Dr. John Gurdon successfully cloned a frog.5 Dr. Gurdon replaced the nucleus of an embryonic frog cell, much larger and easier to manipulate than those of mammals, with that of another cell from a different frog.Although the frogs never reached adultt B.A., North Carolina State University, 1996; J.D. Candidate, Case Western