An almost universal condemnation

Human reproductive cloning became an ethical and legal issue in February 1997, when Ian Wilmut and other researchers at the Roslin Institute in Scotland reported that they had successfully produced the first mammalian clone by using the method of somatic cell nuclear transfer. They had ‘emptied’ 277 sheep ova by removing their nuclei and then fused them, by using electricity, with mammary gland cells taken from other sheep. This produced 29 growing embryos, and their implantation in surrogate mother sheep resulted in 13 pregnancies. In the end, one healthy lamb, Dolly, was born on 5 July 1996.

Following the announcement of Dolly’s birth, the media was quick to note the connection with human cloning – if the process worked for sheep, what would stop scientists from mass producing copies of human beings? Wilmut himself went on record early on stating that his work did not ‘have anything to do with creating copies of human beings’ and that he found the idea of cloning humans ‘repugnant’. But the door had been opened to the possibility, and lawgivers and policy makers all over the world sprang into regulative action.