“First, do no harm.” That most basic principle of the Hippocratic Oath has formed the foundation for medical ethics for over 2,000 years. Nevertheless, that principle is now routinely redefined or ignored, and the field of medical ethics is filled with compromises, conflicts, and worse.

The front page of The New York Times may well be journalism’s most prized piece of real estate. That fact makes the appearance of one particular article all the more surprising and noteworthy.

From our vantage point in the year 2005, we can now see that the twentieth century was a time of tremendous contrasts. Great advances were made in the fight for freedom. The century ended with millions liberated from enslavement to communism, fascism, and other ideologies of terror that marked the last one hundred years. Yet, at the same time, we recognize that the twentieth century was among the most barbaric epochs in human history. Millions were slaughtered in two world wars, in the ovens of death camps, in the killing fields of genocide, and on the altar of convenience.

Just before the end of the year, headlines across the nation announced that a Texas woman had received delivery of a newly cloned kitten–an exact replica of the pet she had cherished for 17 years. The woman, identified only by her first name in press reports, declared herself ecstatic about the kitten and pleased to have paid the $50,000 required for the carbon copy of her beloved dead cat, “Nicky.”