We should stop worrying about biotech and learn to love the clone. The new reproductive technology has become a scapegoat for all we fear about uncontrollable, unnecessary and unethical science. We are told that scientists are on the verge of creating the first human clone. Soon a human will be cloned.

At the moment we hear about the promises of therapeutic cloning - the process that produces stem cells and which may one day offer cures for terrible diseases. The great promise of cloning in terms of human welfare lies in the use of the bio-techniques � not for reproduction � but for therapeutic purposes. Stem cell research as having the 'potential to revolutionise' the practice of medicine.

Can we accept IVF yet reject therapeutic cloning?

Patricia Piccinni, Trophy, The Mutant Genome Project, 1995

However, the regenerative properties of stem cells, which make them so attractive as a possible therapeutic tool, also means that the distinction between therapy and enhancement will inevitably be further eroded.

So many people recoil from this kind of scientific experiment in assisted reproduction. Human cloning evokes the fervid, largely fiction-induced images of doom: cloning means Brave New World, Hitler, Nazi science Frankenstein, Jurassic Park and designer babies.

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