People speculated about human cloning. Harold E. Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health, pleaded before a congressional committee that lawmakers not slam the door on all cloning research. Just as typical was the comment of Alexander Capron of the University of Southern California and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Philosophers and theologians weighed in with virtually unanimous cons. And the interviewed public, on camera, turned up their noses and turned down their thumbs when asked about making genetic twins of children.
Most people have fewer reservations about animal cloning than they do about human experiments.
They're trying to guard what is left of human distinctiveness. Crossing this new scientific horizon produces intuitions that science now possesses the key to a door most would rather have locked forever. Limits already pushed Human distinctiveness, of course, has never been absolute. The connection between the cloning of the Scottish sheep and the prospect of similarly reproducing humans is one more illustration of the kinship people have with animals and the whole natural world. Also, much of what goes on in the laboratory, especially in infertility clinics, already appears at the edges of what many believe are limits set down by nature and God alike.