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My thesis is that we need an international moratorium on human cloning, that is, on any production of human embryos through somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) at this time, because this is the only way to achieve a prohibition of reproductive cloning, for several reasons. Practically, if any laboratory is free to create human embryos through SCNT, the result will be cloned babies or, at the very least, serious attempts to create them. Politically, in order to enact a ban on reproductive cloning at the federal level, it appears very likely that a moratorium on research cloning will also be needed. By the end of the moratorium period, means can be developed-which do not now exist in state or federal law-both to rein in some of the wilder, entrepreneurial aspects of the "fertility business" in the United States and to exercise appropriate control over the manner and circumstances under which cloned human embryos would be produced for therapeutic purposes.

Not only is a moratorium on the laboratory production of cloned human embryos needed for prudential reasons, but it can be...