by Commonweal

About the author: Commonweal is an independent journal of opinion edited and managed by lay Catholics.

From Scotland comes news that a team of fearless scientists has cloned a sheep. One might consider this development one worrisome step for sheep, but more likely it is a very big and very dangerous step for humankind.

The Uproar over Dolly

“Dolly,” as she was christened, was produced in a laboratory where a cell taken from the udder of one sheep was fused with another sheep’s egg, from which the nucleus had been removed. The resulting embryo was then implanted in a surrogate mother and brought to term. Dolly is the genetic twin of the sheep from whom the cell was first taken, and her arrival promises benefits in scientific knowledge, agriculture, and medicine...