REVIEWSrnA Good ThingrnNot to Dornby Edward B. AndersonrnClone: The Road to Dolly,rnand the Path Aheadrnby Gina KolatarnNew York: William Morrow;rn276 pp., $23.00rnThe announcement in Februaryrn1997 that British scientists hadrncloned a sheep turned the medical worldrnupside down, Ian Wilmut and his colleaguesrnhad taken cells from an adultrnsheep’s udder and removed the nucleusrnfrom each. They then implanted this geneticrnmaterial into a specially preparedrnsheep ovum from which the nucleus hadrnbeen removed. Out of 277 ova, 13 developedrninto embryos and were implantedrninto surrogate mother ewes. Twelvernmiscarried, but one survived: Dolly.rnGina Kolata, a science writer for thernNew York Times, was the first to break thernstory of Dolly to the American public.rnTo her, when the history of our age isrnwritten, “the creation of this little lambrnwill stand out.” Comparing it to, say, thernconquest of smallpox doesn’t do it justice,rnshe says, for “events that alter ourrnvery notion of what it means to be humanrnare few and scattered over the centuries.”rnKolata points out the ironic situationrnof those medical ethicists and theologiansrnwho began to examine the implicationsrnof cloning in the 1960’s, long beforernit seemed feasible. Scientists toldrnthem to stop their frightening talk aboutrnhuman cloning, since it would neverrnhappen and since funding for medicalrnresearch in general could be hurt. Manyrnethicists, cowed by the charge of impedingrnmedical progress, lost the chance tornmake an early public case againstrncloning. Ceorge Annas, a Boston Universityrnlaw professor who favors legislationrnprohibiting human cloning andrnwho testified at a Senate hearing followingrnthe Dolly announcement, says “wernknow where we are going and . , . canrnask—for one of the few times in historyrn— do we want to go there?” Yet haltingrnthe process will become increasingly difficult.rnScientists can manufacture moralrnexcuses and will have the financial motivationrnto proceed with developingrncloning technology, ban or no ban.rnWe have yet to see the long-term impactrnof human manipulation of plantrnand animal genetics; it could be devastating.rnThe scientific trail to Dolly, however,rnis a fascinating one. It leads throughrnexperiments on frog eggs, gene transfersrnin mice, attempts at making the perfectrncow, and, finally, to Wilmut’s project ofrnproducing whole herds of identical geneticallyrnengineered sheep whose milkrnwill produce large quantities of humanrninsulin, blood-clotting agents, and otherrnprotein drugs. The ethical questions,rnhowever, permeate a different world:rnthat of “advanced assisted reproductiverntechniques” (infertility treatments) andrnabortion.rnTracing the relevant histories ofrnmolecular biology, embryology, and assistedrnreproduction, Kolata does a brilliantrnjob of turning highly technical researchrninto accurate and readable prosernfor the general reader. Her one mentionrnof abortion is related to the cloning variationrndescribed by an anonymous physicianrnwho proposes to develop the technologyrnwhereby a woman incapable ofrnproducing any ova has her genes insertedrninto a donor egg. This cloned embryorncould be implanted into her body and allowedrnto grow, then aborted. The ovariesrncould be removed from the fetus to harvestrnthe ova (genetically identical to thernwoman, of course, since the fetus was arnclone). One of these ova could be fertilizedrnwith her husband’s sperm and thernresulting embryo implanted into thernwoman. Both parents thus get to reproduce,rnovercoming the small problem ofrnthe woman’s complete infertility.rnAlthough Kolata admits that this “mayrnseem risky and futuristic” and that, “ofrncourse, abortion opponents would object,”rnher passing reference to thisrn”strange” proposal is telling. She, likernmost Americans, fails to understand thatrnabortion-on-demand and “advanced assistedrnreproductive techniques” such asrnsurrogate mothers, sperm banks, and testtubernconceptions are two sides of thernsame theoretical coin of absolute reproductivernfreedom. In practice as in theory,rncreation and destruction are alreadyrnentwined in assisted reproductionrnthrough the disposal of unwanted embryosrnin the lab, through “sex-selection”rnabortion, through “selective pregnancyrnreduction” to ensure that a woman onlyrnhas one or two babies rather than octuplets,rnand through the abortion of geneticallyrnabnormal fetuses (which occur inrnhigher numbers with assisted reproduction).rnKolata devotes ample space to thernwell-reasoned arguments of humanrncloning opponents. Narcissism, pride,rnthe desire to manipulate one’s children,rnthe attempt somehow to escape death,rnthe vanity of wanting to be one’s own creator,rnthe danger and immorality of creatingrncloned people someone hopes tornmold and control—all are held up to thernlight. She even holds out the possibilityrnthat we as a society will choose not tornclone humans. Yet the widespread andrnunthinking cultural and political acceptancernof both advanced reproduction assistancernand abortion makes humanrncloning inevitable, barring an insurmountablerntechnical hurdle.rnTheologian Paul Ramsey says “therngood things that men do can be maderncomplete only by the things they refusernto do.” Though this is sound advice forrnour Brave New World, nothing seemsrnmore fruitiess than a call for self-restraint.rnEdward B. Anderson writes fromrnEdmond, Oklahoma.rnTO SUBSCRIBE…rn1-800-877-5459rnJULY 1998/33rnrnrn