Brave New World of Genetic Engineering

In “The Politics of Cloning” (Opinion, June 3), Eric Cohen writes that “reproductive-rights activists . . . see cloning as a personal choice that the government should not meddle with.” Though human cloning and the genetic redesign of future generations have in the past been entangled with the politics of abortion, this statement is now simply inaccurate.

Many advocates of reproductive choice firmly oppose human cloning and inheritable genetic modifications. It is clear to us and to most people that a woman’s right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is a very different matter than the desire to control the genetic makeup of a future child.

I’d also take issue with Cohen’s suggestion that Americans will come to tolerate the production of cloned children just as they came to accept in vitro fertilization. The case for cloning as a fertility treatment is weak, and as Cohen acknowledges, human cloning would open the door to the production of “designer babies.” That is a eugenic prospect that Americans understand--and in polls on the topic, huge majorities vigorously reject it.

Laws prohibiting human cloning and/or inheritable genetic modification exist in over 42 nations, and world leaders are calling for global bans. There is no reason that the United States cannot join with other nations to ban these potentially disastrous applications of genetic engineering and protect what can be called, with chilling new meaning, a “human future.”

Marcy Darnovsky PhD

Exploratory Initiative on the New Human Genetic

Technologies, San Francisco