He was asked to revisit the kinds of issues that surfaced last year when the Roslin Institute cloned Dolly the sheep, and in 1993 when researchers at the George Washington Medical Center first split embryos. On the one hand we're used to hearing about and applauding scientific breakthroughs concerning challenges like cancer and traveling to the farthest parts of space. But the cloning of humans raises apprehensions, fears and doubts. It's inevitable, probably. The fundamental fear, I think, is that the distinctiveness of human beings may be lost.
People wish to guard their distinctiveness.
Some say cloning is similar. But I would say we have serious differences in the two procedures. Nobody knows how the child will come out. The new life is not programmed. Cloning, he says, is different and involves two possibilities.