Rudy Baum

About the author: Rudy Baum is managing editor of Chemical & Engineering News, a weekly science magazine.

The technology that resulted in the cloning of a sheep will inevitably be applied to human beings. Though there are ethical concerns involved with human cloning, it is unlikely that this science will be used for evil purposes. Human and animal cloning research will produce useful scientific and biomedical discoveries and therefore should not be banned.

Ten days after the announcement that Scottish scientists had cloned an adult sheep—the first time an adult mammal had been cloned— President Clinton declared a ban in the U.S. on research aimed at cloning humans. In Congress, legislation was introduced to ban funding of such research and to make cloning humans a federal crime.

Fears about human cloning

The response of most...