July  2001 3 consider ways to address public concern regarding religious issues raised by clon- ing.  When the medical benefit of a new technology becomes evident to the public, and the technology is found to acceptably safe, the public and, in turn, government, both adopt more positive attitudes toward these ethically sensitive technologies. The second public concern identified in the survey was that cloning interferes with the  right  of  each  human  being  to  be  a unique  individual.  This  reflects  the public’s lack of understanding of the rela- tionship between nature and nurture.⁵ One member of Congress recently stated that “[Cloning]    interferes  with  the  natural order….People have a right to their own genetic makeup, which should not be rep- licated.”⁷   The immediate response to this concern is that nature does not assure that each human being will have a unique ge- nome.  There are about 2.5 million identi- cal  twins  in  the  United States. Moreover, identical twin  studies  show  that genes  per  se  do  not  deter- mine the elements of each person’s individuality.  The public often fails to appre- ciate the impact of nurture in human development or to realize that human clones will have different personality traits than the individuals whose DNA they carry. The public should be educated to understand that individuality results from a complex interaction between differences in educa- tion, environment, life experiences and ge- netic  endowment.  Psychologically  and physiologically, individuality stems from both how a person is conceived and what he or she experiences after birth. The third concern specified in the sur- vey was related to the fear of both the pub- lic and governmental leaders that cloning will be used for non-therapeutic purposes to produce human clones for commercial use, to create ‘designer’ babies, or to create ‘evil leaders’.  This fear of eugenics is not restricted to human cloning since similar concerns were expressed in the early days of IVF. While this is an issue where abuse may be difficult to regulate, this fear may be partially mitigated once the public un- derstands  the  critical  role  that  nurture plays in all areas of human development: there is more to developing a great basket- ball star than simply clon- ing  Michael  Jordan.  Simi- larly, the fear that cloning a Hitler-like individual could create world havoc is overly simplistic.  Even  raising children  to  be  moral  citi- zens is a complex task the success  of  which  remains difficult  to  understand  in scientific, psychological or sociological terms. One point where scientists, the public and legislators are in general agreement is that as long as the success rate of cloning animals remains dangerously low and the risks  to  the  fetus  high,⁸  this procedure should not be applied to human reproduc- tion.  However,  time  can also  serve  as  an  ally  and safety issues can dramati- cally change as technology improves. For example, by 1990,  IVF  clinics  spread across  the  United  States with success measured by the  ratio  of  live  births  to uterine  transfers  of  about 8%.    Today,  the  success  rate  for  IVF  has risen to about 28% and the babies born us- ing IVF appear to be healthy.⁹  These statis- tics have alleviated many of the fears and health concerns among the general popu- lation  and,  in  turn,  politi- cians. Regulations introduced by coalitions of scientists, gov- ernment officials and the pub- lic were instituted when re- combinant DNA technology was introduced in the 1970s and have served as a good or- ganizational model for devel- oping guidelines in human cloning. The National Bioet- hics Advisory Commission recommended  in  1997  that creating a child using somatic cell nuclear transfer be banned but not other areas of sci- This fear of eugenics is not restricted to human clon- ing since similar concerns were  expressed  in  the early days of IVF. [R]aising  children  to  be moral  citizens  is  a  com- plex  task  the  success  of which remains difficult to understand  in  scientific, psychological  or  socio- logical terms. One  point  where  scien- tists, the public and legis- lators  are  in  general agreement is that as long as  the  success  rate  of cloning animals remains dangerously low and the risks to the fetus high, this procedure should not be applied to human repro- duction.