X-Message-Number: 7810
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 08:57:03 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Prohibition on Cloning

On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Richard Schroeppel wrote:

> US President Bill Clinton has just prohibited federal funding of human
> cloning research.  He has also requested a moratorium on private
> research.  Some govt commission is supposed to report in 90 days on
> the ethics of cloning.

US President Bill Clinton has also prohibited the export of public key
encryption where the key length exceeds 40 bits (48 in some cases). This
certainly hasn't stopped other countries from developing their own
encryption software using "impregnable" keys of (e.g.) 128 bits. In fact
at least one US company (c2net, headed by Sameer Parekh, a wellknown
online activist) is employing programmers overseas to develop strong
encryption software that would violate federal export rules. 

I believe that dumb restrictions in biotech will be similarly 
circumvented. 

> Is any cryonics group planning to testify before the commission?  Some
> of our members have expressed a wish to be cloned if their brains are
> irretrievably pizzled.  A prohibition on cloning could present
> problems.  We might also want to use the technology to regrow bodies
> for our neuro patients.

I believe it would be extremely foolish for any cryonics organization to
step forward at this time and say, publicly, "Hey, we want permission to
clone PEOPLE!" The immediate response could be a prohibition against
cryonics, to match the one against cloning. 

I will refrain from ranting about Clinton's well known propensity for any 
measure that he senses is a crowd-pleaser.


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