Xeroxed people. That is what we are talking about here folks. A little baby person who looks just like you. A clone. Ready or not, clones are coming soon to a laboratory near you!

  Professor Panos Zavos says the world must "come to grips with cloning!" BBC News has reported that Zavos is part of a private consortium of scientists will use techniques that resemble those used to clone animals like Dolly the Sheep. According to that story we can expect the world's first baby clone within 12 to 24 months.

   Zavos, professor of reproductive physiology at the University of Kentucky, said the technology needs to be perfected before it escapes the lab and, like backroom abortions, becomes available to "anybody who wants to clone themselves."

  The scary part here is that Zavos and his group are probably doing the right thing. Putting a lid on technology is like trying to plug a volcano - eventually the stuff will find a way out! There is no doubt in my mind that human cloning will happen someday, somewhere. So the question is really this: do we stick our heads in the sand, or do we discuss this new technology in a meaningful and constructive way and put our fears into proper perspective?

   Zavos said "The world has to come to grips [with the fact] that the cloning technology is almost here," he said. "The irony about it is that there are so many people that are attempting to do it, and they could be doing it even as we speak in their garages. It is time for us to develop the package in a responsible manner, and make the package available to the world. I think I have faith in the world that they will handle it properly."

  Among those who are attempting clone programs are the Raelians, who believe that it is holy quest to pursue cloning. "Eternal life" could be reached "scientifically" by transferring a soul into a cloned body. While some experts doubt the Raelians have the expertise to achieve success, others say it is simply a question of mathematical probability: 20 egg donors and 50 surrogate mothers would probably be enough to make a human clone.

   As with animal cloning the technology would involve injecting genetic material from the father into the mother's egg, which would then be implanted in her womb. Human cloning would at first cost $50,000 or more, but that could come down to around the cost of in vitro fertilisation, about $10,000 to $20,000.

   The plans of Professor Zavos and his colleagues are, of course, bringing an outcry from other scientists, inc Tony Perry, a leading cloning expert at Rockefeller University in New York, said it was "morally repugnant" to try to clone humans when animal experiments were producing clones with high levels of defects.

   Dr Harry Griffin is assistant director of the Roslin Institute, Scotland, which successfully cloned Dolly the sheep. He said "It would be wholly irresponsible to try to clone a human being, given the present state of the technology. The success rate with animal cloning is about one to two per cent in the published results, and I think lower than that on average. I don't know anyone working in this area who thinks the rate will easily be improved. There are many cases where the cloned animal dies late in pregnancy or soon after birth. The chances of success are so low it would be irresponsible to encourage people to think there's a real prospect. The risks are too great for the woman, and of course for the child."

  Griffin concludes, "I remain opposed to the idea of cloning human beings. Even if it were possible and safe - which it's not - it wouldn't be in the interest of the child to be a copy of its parent."

  So do we need set methods and standard techniques to ensure safe cloning? Will this prevent small, experimental laboratories from trying to create superbabies? Is Zavos jumping the gun or priming the pump? Do any of these questions really matter to the cloning scientists? Probably not. The clones are coming - and by the looks of things, we could be seeing a lot of them!