Cloning

The first report of stem cells created from cloned human embryos was reported in 2013, and the process has been verified and replicated.  While the embryos were not implanted into a woman to produce pregnancy, these living human beings were simply discarded.  It may be surprising to know that the US has no federal law prohibiting human reproductive cloning.  There are, however, several international agreements that formally forbid it.

It has been 23 years since the cloning of Dolly the Sheep.  Whereas she died rather young, 13 other cloned sheep are still alive and well.   Cloned monkey embryos have also been brought to live birth, so it seems only a matter of time until someone does bring a cloned human to live birth.

 It should be noted that it would be necessary to bring two such cloned embryos to live birth near the same time to have two beings that are identical twins.   One embryo could be frozen to be implanted years later to supply spare parts for the one born earlier.  Still, we are a long way from the equally hideous prospect of an aging adult individual making a clone of himself in order to have spare parts available in case of future need.  The movie Island (2005) concerned humans used for organ harvesting who attempted to escape when they found out why they existed.