Wake Up World!
                  The Era of Cloning has Begun!
                             2-25-97

In Sunday's newspaper it was announced that  Dr.  Ian  Wilmut,  a
Scottish  scientist,  was able to clone a sheep. Since humans are
just another mammal, essentially the same methods can in  princi-
ple  be used to make genetically identical copies of an adult hu-
man. A big discussion has begun in the media of whether  and  how
we should restrict the new cloning technology so that it can't be
"misused" on humans.

Ever since Sunday I have been thinking about this new present  of
science.  First,  I  claim  that  the  cloning technology will be
developed on a large scale because it is very useful for  farming
large  animals.  It is now possible to make copies of a super cow
that has the best milk production. The farmer simply injects  the
super  cow  with  hormones so that she produces lots of eggs. The
eggs are flushed out of the uterus and in vitro,  the  nuclei  of
the eggs are swapped with the nuclei from cells of the same super
cow.  After that little procedure the eggs are injected into  the
uteri of specialized "birthing" cows. The latter variety does not
need to produce any milk but should have large uteri so they  can
"comfortably" carry a number of calves at the same time.

Second I believe that there is no way that the cloning technology
once  around will not be applied to humans.  Ian Wilmut suggested
in an interview that we should develop the  technology  first  so
that  we  can find meaningful restrictions for applying the tech-
nology to humans.

I believe since the technology will be developed (it  essentially
has  been  already) it will eventually be applied to humans.  How
can you prevent a "farmess" to give "herself" the same  hormones.
How  can you prevent her from flushing out the eggs from her womb
and swapping the nuclei of her eggs with nuclei of cells from her
own body. She then puts one (or two!) eggs back into her womb and
voila`, she is growing an identical twin of herself.

The amazing thing is that the farmess of the future who knows the
technology can do "it" all on her own. So no law in the world can
prevent her from doing it in her bedroom (She  owns  her  body)!.
Even  if  it  is outlawed, how will the law be enforced. We can't
require DNA tests of all newborns for checking whether they  have
the same DNA as their mother.

And were does the farmer come in?  He has become kind  of  super-
fluous.  I have always thought that a women has more options when
it comes to reproduction.  First, she can do it the old-fashioned
way  and  find a willing male (an easy task). Then artificial in-
semination and sperm banks came along allowing her to choose  the
characteristics  of the male partner in a catalogue.  And now she
can clone herself, and her daughter can clone herself again,  and
so forth, ... , at infinitum.  In a sense as of last Sunday women
have become immortal.


Manfred K. Warmuth, Prof. of Computer Science, UC Santa Cruz