How can infertile couples be helped by cloning

Anne and Bob tried in vitro fertilization to conceive a child. Anne miscarried and they were devastated. Doctors then told them they would "never" have their own children. It's loosing all your children," Bob said. They have thought about adoption, but they can't let go of the desire to have children that are theirs "biologically. But in California where Anne and Bob live, even if they could, actually cloning a child would be illegal.

Last January the state banned cloning saying it raised such profound medical, ethical and social questions more evaluation would be needed before a policy could be developed.

Cloning is a question ethicists and scientists are debating. Some say a clone would suffer psychologically because it would know in great detail many things about its life. It would know pretty much what it would look like, what kind of genetic diseases it would suffer and maybe it's intellectual capabilities.

Some feel that knowledge would be difficult for an individual to handle. Please enter email address to continue. Although there is widespread opposition to reproductive cloning, some have argued that its use by infertile couples to have genetically related children would be ethically justifiable.

Others have suggested that lesbian or gay couples might wish to use cloning to have genetically related children. Most of the main objections to human reproductive cloning are based on the child's lack of unique nuclear DNA. In the future, it may be possible safely to create children using cloning combined with genetic modifications, so that they have unique nuclear DNA. The genetic modifications could be aimed at giving such children genetic characteristics of both members of the couple concerned.