In 1932, Aldous Huxley's fictional tale, Brave New World, explored the possibility of a world where babies are mass-produced in laboratories. Science fiction, you say? Fast-forward to January 2001, when former University of Kentucky professor Panayiotis Zavos states that he plans to clone a human in one to two years.

According to Zavos, all humans should have the right to have a family, so couples unable to have children should be able to clone one for their own. With 700 couples volunteering to take part in the study, Zavos claims his team has unlimited private funds to create the first baby to have the same genetic make-up of one of its parents.

In addition to the moral arguments that surround this issue, scientifically speaking, the cloning research that has been done on animals has presented negative results. Since Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997 there have been cases of cloned cows, goats, pigs and mice, but most of the cloned animals died at birth.

Dr. Rudolf Jaenishch, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, asserts that "Some {clones} reach adulthood and they appear normal, but they may not be. I believe there is probably not a normal clone around."

So what do you think?

• Is it morally right to manipulate the human genetic code? Should parents have the right to alter the genetic makeup of a fetus?
• How do you feel about cloning ? is it morally right to clone another human being? What about animals?
• Do you think couples who cannot have children should be able to clone a child?