Just Love Or Love Of Lucre?
In December, Genetic Saving & Clone announced the birth of Little Nicky, the first cloned cat to be sold as a pet. The recipient, a Texas woman known only as Julie, paid $50, 000 to have her beloved - but dead - kitty cloned. While some say she was swindled, Hawthorne believes she was given an incredible, if expensive, gift.

"Our product is based on love," Hawthorne says.

David Magnus, director of Standford University's Center for Biomedical Ethics, scoffed at this claim. He said the high death rates and possible cruelty that go into cloning make Genetic Savings & clone's product anything but "loving".

Also, he an other critics say consumers are being duped: the animals they think they are getting - their original pet - cannot be reproduced.

Finally, they think genetic Savings & Clone's product is grossly frivolous in the light of the number of animals in shelters who need homes.

"Everything about this is objectionable," Magnus says.

But Autumn Fiester, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, says there isn't evidence to show that animals are suffering - at least any more than commercially bred dogs or cats.

She adds that the claim that pet owners are being duped is condescending. As for the frivoulous argument, she says, "Then you're arguing against buying any luxury good."

Among those involved in cloning, she is in the minority.

Robert Lanza, vice-president of medical and scientific development at advanced cell technology - a Worcester, Massachusetts, company at the forefront of cloning technology called it "troubling".

Rudolf jaenisch, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of technology & Research at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, called pet cloning "ridiculous" and "preposterous".

Somatic cell nuclear transfer - the shop name for cloning - is conceptually a pretty easy process.