(SCMP, December 28, 2002)
Examining the debate surrounding cloning is a little like staring at a multi-faceted diamond; the longer you study it, the more angles you see.
The claim yesterday by a group linked to a religious cult that a baby has been born to an American woman through cloning throws up further questions, but few answers. Who will bear moral responsibility if the baby, a girl, develops the health problems that some scientists believe she may have a greater chance of developing? Is she the daughter of her mother - the source of the cells from which she is cloned - or an identical twin? What measures are being taken to ensure the girl lives a normal life, rather than that of a circus freak? In later years, could this cloned human safely reproduce with a fellow clone?
All these questions sit, of course, on top of a heap of moral, ethical and scientific queries that have been swirling about the advance of cloning for several years. That few have been effectively dealt with despite the march of medical science, shows how dangerously overdue and difficult the debate has become.
Whether the Raelian movement is telling the truth or not, their claim is a reminder that nations large and small must address the issue urgently. Several have already outlawed human cloning research, but the US is not yet one of them.
It may be that an international body is required to pool known information about cloning and to monitor - or even police - cloning activities. Medical science is still locked in its own debates over the supposed benefits and the risks. High rates of birth defects have been registered in cloned sheep and mice - problems impossible to detect at an early stage. Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be cloned, is showing signs of premature ageing.