Ruth Macklin

About the author: Ruth Macklin is professor of bioethics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

Theologians and many others want human cloning banned because it might violate the human dignity and rights of those cloned. However, it is unlikely that cloned persons would be treated as less than human because it would be so clearly unethical to do so. On the contrary, human cloning research has many possible benefits and should therefore not be banned.

Last week's [February 23, 1997] news that scientists had cloned a sheep sent academics and the public into a panic at the prospect that humans might be next. That's an understandable reaction. Cloning is a radical challenge to the most fundamental laws of biology, so it's not unreasonable to be concerned that it might threaten...