In the modern world, you can even have sex and parenthood without suffering the bit in between. Some Hollywood actresses may have satisfied the urge for mothering by electing to adopt children rather than spoil their figures (as they see it) by childbearing. For people as beautiful as this, the temptation to adopt a clone (reared in a surrogate womb) could one day be irresistible.

Once cloning loses its stigma, the urge to tinker with the genes of offspring may not be far behind. As Cambridge molecular biologist Graeme Mitchison says, "We can all be beautiful--no baldness, no wimps with glasses, no knobby knees." Olivia Judson, author of a forthcoming book called Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice for All Creation, begs to differ: "If there is such hostility to genetically modified soya, it doesn't bode well for genetically modified people."

Human cloning and designer babies are probably not imminent. Even assuming that the procedures are judged safe and efficient in farm animals, still a long way off, they will be heavily discouraged, if not banned, by many governments for human beings.

It is worth noting, however, that in much of the biological world, cloning is old hat. There are some species, such as those dandelions and whiptail lizards, that reproduce no other way, and there are many, such as aphids and strawberries, that switch effortlessly between sex and cloning. There are fierce arguments in biological circles about why such species have not taken over the world: since they reproduce so efficiently and do not waste energy producing futile creatures called males. MORE>>