Debate on human cloning and life issues The use of cloning to produce the sheep "Dolly" has stimulated a public debate on human cloning. This issue was quickly linked to that of abortion and embryo research. What is cloning? Cloning is a way of producing the genetic twin of an organism, without sexual reproduction. The method used to produce Dolly the sheep is called "somatic cell nuclear transfer": the nucleus of a body cell ("somatic cell") is transferred into an unfertilized egg whose nucleus has been removed or rendered inactive. A tiny electrical pulse can then stimulate the development of the resulting embryo, which is an almost exact genetic twin of the creature that provided the nucleus. Technically it might be possible to use this procedure to reproduce humans. What does cloning have to do with embryo research? Very much. Cloning a human or other large organism begins with the artificial production of an embryo of that species. To produce a live sheep, “Dolly,” scientists created 277 sheep embryos; 276 died or were discarded. Human cloning experiments would involve the creation and destruction of human embryos on a large scale. Hasn't the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) proposed a ban on cloning? Not exactly. It proposed a five-year moratorium on the use of cloning to produce a "baby," meaning a child born alive. This would allow unlimited cloning to produce human embryos, provided the embryos are then destroyed. Such experiments could be used to refine the procedure and test its likelihood of causing birth defects. After years of destructive experiments, the ban on allowing live births may be reconsidered. So NBAC's proposal is not a ban on cloning but a permit for experimentation on embryos and a mandate to destroy them. This approach is reflected in S. 1602, a bill introduced by Senators Kennedy and Feinstein to prohibit the transfer of a cloned human embryo into “a woman's uterus.” According to S. 1602, researchers could clone embryos and perform experiments on them without limits; they would only be violating the law if they did not later throw away the embryos. What does human cloning have to do with abortion? Enough, because bills like S. 1602 would impose a ban on “cloning a human being” by requiring abortion to destroy all cloned human embryos. This would mark the first time Congress would declare that human embryos are not human and deserve only to be destroyed.