A group of researchers meeting in Rome vowed to proceed with its plan to clone a human baby within a year. The announcement led to a backlash among Italian politicians who wish to introduce legislation to ban human cloning in Italy. Not to be undone, Panayiotis Zavos, a reproduction researcher formerly with the University of Kentucky, and Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori, said that they would relocate to another undisclosed Mediterranean country, which some speculate could be Israel.
Zavos claims that between 600 and 700 couples volunteered to participate in the cloning process. Interest has come from all over, from Japan to Argentina, from Germany to Britain, he told reporters. He also said that his team was ready to start cloning in the next few weeks, principally to help infertile couples bare children.
The prospect of human cloning raises highly controversial moral and scientific issues. The possible consequences stagger the imagination. In spite of assurance that the scientists know what they are doing, the possibility of producing some sort of Frankenstein monster leaves many opposed to the process. The destruction of unsuitable embryos alone should raise a moral outcry.
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