Should Human Cloning be Legalized?
            
             The ability to reproduce human beings without sexual reproduction is no longer only an idea to be explored in sci-fi movies and books. After over forty years of research and development, human cloning is quickly becoming a reality. Cloning captured the public's attention when Scottish scientists startled the world in July of 1996 when they announced the birth of a sheep named Dolly. The scientists cloned Dolly from the nucleus of an adult mammary cell and a sheep egg. Ever since that miraculous event occurred, people have been pondering the possibility of cloning humans. What would a clone be like? The person and the clone of the person share the same genetic structure, which means the clone will look the exact same as the original. Their physical nature would be nearly identical but what about their personality? Many feel that human cloning should be illegal because it is a way for scientists to play god, but there are others who think cloning needs to be legalized to help save lives.
             The extent to which human cloning should be restricted has been of major concern for legislators and researchers as well as for society as a whole. At what point does the development of a human embryo through asexual means become unethical? What consequences may arise as a result of cloning human embryos? Do these embryos have rights? We need to distinguish the difference between the cloning of cells and tissues from the cloning of human beings through somatic nuclear transplantation. The creation of policies that clearly define the terms of cloning to minimize loopholes and address the urgent need for a mechanism to regulate, rather than ban, human cloning for the purpose of research is imperative.
             The closely related issue of stem-cell research complicates the politics of cloning. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that many scientists believe may someday cure many of our worst diseases and injuri...