But Dr Seed provoked a debate that settled on several issues. In fact, they will have inherited the conspicuous paternal genes that make them seem as if they had been cloned. In the lottery of inheritance, that happens from time to time. So, in theory, cloning might present hope for people who are otherwise infertile. But that still leaves the first two questions unresolved.
Nobody knows how to make sense of the legal issues.
But then nobody yet knows how to clone a human humanely. Ian Wilmut, the Roslin scientist who produced Dolly, counts her as just one success out of 272 attempts. It would mean, he said, asking a large number of women to risk miscarriages late in the pregnancy, or stillbirths or deformed babies, just to produce one successful clone. Obviously we are doing it - but we are doing it after thought. I personally would be prepared to use these procedures with animals to produce medicines to treat human diseases, but I would be doubtful about doing it in agriculture simply to produce more meat or milk.