The New Scientist-reported clash between Ricard Solé’s Santa Fe Institute modeling team and critics including Vaughn Cooper underscores a critical under-examined issue: the absence of binding international governance for dual-use synthetic biology involving chirality reversal. Solé et al. employed computer models simulating mirror-organism invasion across ecological scenarios, concluding that nutritional chirality barriers and competition from native biodiversity would likely prevent establishment. This preprint, not yet peer-reviewed, explicitly flags open questions on long-term evolutionary adaptation and immune evasion. Yet the 2024 Science paper signed by 38 experts argued that mirror bacteria could evade innate immunity and persist long enough to cause irreversible ecological or health damage, demanding a moratorium on such research. The Solé study’s methodology relies on simplified ecological parameters rather than empirical wet-lab data, a limitation that weakens its dismissal of risk; Cooper’s rebuttal correctly notes non-chiral nutrients and rapid evolution could enable persistence. Broader patterns in synthetic biology, including past debates over gain-of-function influenza work, show repeated failures to close governance gaps before capabilities advance. Without coordinated oversight from bodies like the WHO and national biosafety boards, mirror-life projects risk proceeding in fragmented regulatory environments.