There was news last week that scientists in South Korea have succeeded in cloning a human embryo. Their reported intent is to extract stem cells from the cloned embryos for research and therapeutic purposes, not to produce cloned babies. But if these accounts are accurate, the world is a large step closer to reproductive cloning. What would a world with human clones be like?

Popular accounts often conjure up images of cloned human beings as though they were only spare parts. Presumably, the genetic "parent" stores the clone as insurance against the need for a replacement organ. The clone's organ is a perfect genetic match, freeing the parent of the possibility of an immune system rejection.

Equally fantastic are the movie images of armies of clones behaving like robots. Somehow they are programmed to serve only the interests of the parent.

What both of these images overlook is that a cloned human being -- if there ever is one -- will be a human being. This means a cloned individual will have the same rights as other human beings. Plainly, it would be a violation of human rights to "store" a person as a potential organ donor. Equally egregious would be programming a person to have no self-interest. These acts would treat the cloned human being as a piece of property -- a thing -- not as the person he or she would be.

Nor is it true that a clone would be fully identical to the parent. The genetic composition would be the same, but people are more than their genes. Our physical inheritance is in constant interaction with the total environment -- natural and social. Since the clone would necessarily enter and be shaped by a different natural and social environment, the parent and clone may be identical only in appearance. They could differ widely in personality.

A world with reproduction through cloning would be a radical break with our species' biological and social history. Even in today's most artificial conceptions -- in vitro or "test tube" fertilization -- there are genes from two parents.

What the physical consequences would be of this departure from our uniform species history is anybody's guess. Experience with cloned animals has demonstrated the likely difficulties: high rates of death during gestation, birth of grotesquely large offspring, high rates of abnormalities, and the development of unusual health problems as they age. Perhaps these are expressions of flaws in current cloning techniques. But perhaps they are the results of contravening nature. Either way, would it be fair to potential human beings to create them in a manner that increases the likelihood of these harmful possibilities? It would not, in my opinion, if we think of them as would-be persons, not as things.

The social and psychological consequences of cloning are even more worrisome. How would a cloned human being relate to others, knowing that others represent combined genetic inheritances and he or she does not? Even those who have never met their biological parents know that they have had them, know that some of who they are genetically is due to a mother and some to a father. How would a clone be affected by having a single genetically identical parent?

Many people spend years of their lives coping with the effects of a dominating parent. One would have to assume that a parent-child relationship between genetically identical persons would be exceptionally intense, especially for the child.

It is hard in advance of the facts to catalogue reasons why individuals might turn to cloning. Perhaps there will be good reasons, but there is one obviously bad one. The Greek myth of Narcissus gives us the classical tale of the allure and perils of self-infatuation. The desire to reproduce by cloning may be an expression of exaggerated self-love. If this were a parent's motive, consciously or not, it is hard to envision a healthy emotional development for the child.

Another reason sometimes offered for cloning is replacement of a lost loved one. In this scenario, when a child is born the parents store some of the child's genetic material. If the child dies, he or she can then be recreated by cloning. Perhaps this would produce some solace for grieving parents. But the second child will only be identical to the lost child genetically. He or she will most certainly be different emotionally, bearing the psychological burden of being a replacement for a lost brother or sister.

If cloning is permitted, we would have to imagine families of cloned siblings. Each child would be identical not only to the parent, but also his or her siblings. Some might literally be twins in the sense of being gestated and born together. But some could also be twins separated in age. Imagine, for example, three children spaced years apart, each identical to the same parent and to one another. One can only suppose that such a family environment would bring new meaning to sibling rivalry.

If there is one generation of clones, there will likely be others. A cloned person could clone a third generation and so on. Imagine a cloned grandchild with a genetically identical parent and a genetically identical grandparent. What would it be like -- accidents aside -- to grow up witnessing the aging process that is your fate too and seeing the genetically caused health problems that you are bound to endure in the future? We know the trauma that can be caused when an individual tests positive for a genetic disease. A cloned child and grandchild would need no tests.

No doubt some will greet the possibility of human cloning as an exciting new alternative in human reproduction. Probably some will claim a right to it. I think there is too much at stake. It would be better for all of us, and especially for those who might be cloned, if we trust our first instinct -- that cloning is too much of a breach with nature.

If there are cloned humans in the future, I hope they will be respected as persons. It does not bode well, however, that we have come to the possibility of human cloning by treating the earliest expressions of human life as things for experimentation and destruction -- as though they were only spare parts.