cloned human

The group which claimed the first birth of a cloned human last week has said a second such baby was born to a Dutch lesbian couple on Friday.


Brigitte Boisselier, Chief executive of the US-based Clonaid organisation told a French news agency the child, a girl, weighed 2.7 kilograms (six pounds), but would not specify in which country the natural birth had taken place.

Sceptical international scientists are still awaiting DNA proof that the first baby - a girl named Eve - is indeed an exact genetic match of her 31-year-old American mother.

US President George W Bush has called on Congress to outlaw human cloning while French President Jacques Chirac described the development as "criminal and contrary to human dignity".



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I can understand the idea of being able to recreate organs and limbs for people, but believe cloning human life is very disturbing. Progression through science is all very well, but when dealing with a living being you have to draw the line somewhere. We have no right to play God and I can only see problems arising from this. Has anyone even stopped to question over the mental state of the cloned humans? They'll be ridiculed and in the limelight for life. And for no fault of their own.
Brad, UK

If human cloning is to be banned, will someone please tell me who/what is going to enforce this ban? I foresee a minefield of problems looming here!
Alan Hall, UK

The best thing we can opt for is to have our best minds at the forefront of research instead of letting a misguided sect take the reins


Niaal, Australia
How long will the scientific elite debate the issue while fanatics stumble blindly onto the world stage? Surely the best thing we can opt for is to have our best minds at the forefront of research instead of letting a misguided sect take the reins.
Niaal, Australia

I feel that human cloning should definitely be banned. What it is doing is upsetting the natural balance of nature. The original purpose of science and technology was to aid us in our pursuits of a better life for human kind but human cloning makes no sense whatever achieving this. Is our thirst for advancement in science worth forsaking our ethical beliefs? I hope not.
Grace, Singapore

Once collective human knowledge crosses a barrier, it is difficult to reverse it through social, political or religious constraints. How could an effective ban on cloning be defined and why should we do it? I wonder if many people who are vocal against cloning really understand the process, the results and potential benefits in treating genetic and congenital defects. Also wonder why we did not have this kind of a reaction against test tube babies, which is also an unnatural process.
Anuj Rikhye, Toronto, Canada

Our energies should go into managing cloning, not banning it


Michael, Canberra, Australia
The question is wrong. Human history has shown that one a technology is developed, it will be used. Our energies should go into managing cloning, not banning it.
Michael, Canberra, Australia

For all the moralistic bluster about human cloning, has anyone really considered what the legal status of the resultant children would be? If a person is a clone, will they be afforded full human rights? This is surely a dichotomy. If you give them human rights, then you tacitly condone the means by which they were conceived. If you withhold such rights, then you are saying that not all human are created equal, and you might as well scrap human rights altogether.
L Moran, New Zealand

I think human cloning is great. Glad science beat bad legislature. Genetic Research will allow us to save our own lives, and increase our own potential as human beings. Life will be longer, and happier. Also it opens many doors for more creative and imaginative thinking. No knowledge is inherently bad. Cloning is no more evil then a copper vein in a mine. It waits to be discovered and used by someone for better or for worse.
Matt Joyce, United States

My main objection to cloning is not the morality issue but that cloning is idiotic. The reason we have thrived as a species is that sexual reproduction is a more successful strategy than asexual reproduction because it mixes and matches genes. Cloning is voluntary asexual reproduction. In cloning, reproductively we're turning ourselves into amoeba. I don't think we'll ever have enough knowledge to consciously guide human development in the right direction. Even worse, the idea of cloning is built on a myth. Given that we are formed by both nature and nurture, another person with your genes is going to be you. It's an insane alliance of vanity, egoism and science.
Gary Pollard, Hong Kong

Where do we ban cloning - in our country or throughout the world? We can ban it where we live, but what about a country half way around the world? How do we force, or at least convince, them to ban it in their society? We cannot. Do we let them continue what we consider inhumane? It's for the world leaders to decide on an international platform.
Hamza Sheikh, Houston, TX, USA

How long is the US going to stop latest developments in the world? Like Napster was freedom of music and now it is dead - the same way now for cloning. Are we coming to the death of a civilization as when in earlier times, new inventions were banned? A definite loss for science and human race.
Vinay, NYC, USA

Just because we can doesn't mean we should. Look at the atomic bomb. Technology is great, but at what cost? We are eventually going to be the death of ourselves. And it will all be because we didn't know when to say no. I am all for medical innovations, and progress, but cloning humans, is just going too far.
TH, United States