These announcements lend some urgency to the need to decide what the government should do about human cloning. The media has contributed to the perception that human cloning will soon occur with a flurry of reports and stories, many feeding directly off one another and reinforcing one another about these pronouncements. The New York Times Magazine, Wired magazine and many other journals and television programs have stated that human cloning will happen in the very near future. And, lastly, there is a very strong belief in our society that science and technology cannot be controlled. Senators, opinion leaders and editorialists have all been hard at work assuring the public that once the genie is out of the proverbial bottle there is no way to reign it back in.
Cloning is the genie and Dolly was the bottle.
Human cloning must be right behind. I do believe that it is important to examine the need for regulations concerning human cloning. My view is that the Federal government should pass legislation declaring a complete moratorium on all cloning intended to create human beings. I think that this ban should be imposed until such time as the Food and Drug Administration is convinced that animal studies on many species including primates shows that human cloning is reasonably safe with a high degree of probability. I should add that I do not believe there is any reason for the government to take any action with respect to the cloning of cells, tissues or organs for medical and therapeutic purposes.