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32 Val. U. L. Rev. 679 (1997-1998)
The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why We Should Ban the Cloning of Humans

handle is hein.journals/valur32 and id is 689 raw text is: THE WISDOM OF REPUGNANCE: WHY WE SHOULD BAN THE CLONING OF HUMANS LEON R. KASS I. INTRODUCTION Our habit of delighting in news of scientific and technological breakthroughs has been sorely challenged by the birth announcement of a sheep named Dolly. Though Dolly shares with previous sheep the softest clothing, woolly, bright, William Blake's question, Little Lamb, who made thee?' has for her a radically different answer: Dolly was, quite literally, made. She is the work not of nature or nature's God but of man, an Englishman, Ian Wilmut, and his fellow scientists. What's more, Dolly came into being not only asexually-ironically, just like He [who] calls Himself a Lamb2-but also as the genetically identical copy (and the perfect incarnation of the form or blueprint) of a mature ewe, of whom she is a clone. This long-awaited yet not quite expected success in cloning a mammal raised immediately the prospect-and the specter-of cloning human beings: I a child, and thou a lamb,' despite our differences, have always been equal candidates for creative making, only now, by means of cloning, we may both spring from the hand of man playing at being God. After an initial flurry of expert comment and public consternation, with opinion polls showing overwhelming opposition to cloning human beings, President Clinton ordered a ban on all federal support for human cloning research (even though none was being supported) and charged the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC or Commission) to report in ninety days on the ethics of human cloning research. The Commission (an eighteen-member panel, evenly balanced between scientists and non-scientists, appointed by the President and reporting to the National Science and Technology Council) invited testimony from scientists, religious thinkers, and bioethicists, as well as from * The Addie Clark Harding Professor, The College and The Committee on Social Thought, The University of Chicago; M.D., The University of Chicago, 1962; Ph.D. [Biochemistry], Harvard University, 1967. An earlier version of this article was published in THE NEW REPUBLIC, June 2, 1997, at 17. The article represents a considerable expansion of testimony presented before the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, Mar. 14, 1997. 1. William Blake, The Lamb, in AN OXFORD ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH POEMS 535 (1956). 2. Id. 3. Id. 679