Slashdot Mirror
Is Human Cloning Easier Than Thought?
The Angry Clam writes "Yahoo has this story about how human beings might be easier to clone than sheep like the (in)famous Dolly. Since most of the "cloning is unethical" arguments hinge upon the high rate of defectives produced during attempts to create Dolly, I wonder what this will mean for things like the Cloning Ban, that Italian doctor, and so forth."
I'd like to address your points: 1. While I will grant you that a fetus does not have the rights of a human (at least in America), that doesn't lessen the immorality of a procedure that is as risky as cloning. For every healthy baby born, you'll get dozens of babies with birth defects, and scores of miscarriages. Perfect the techniques with animals first, than try it on humans. 2. You may not want to define a fetus as a person, but once it's born it certainly will be. Regardless of whether the DNA came from one person or two (parents, sex, that whole thing) a baby, once born, is a person, with the same rights as any other person. After all, just because it has the same DNA as you doesn't mean it is you. It will have it's own memories, personality, etc. 3. On this point I agree with you in principle. However, we shouldn't follow the quest for knowledge blindly. Many scientific findings have moral reprocutions, which must be examined. If we find that, as a people, we aren't mature enough to handle the responsibility that comes with progress, then we need to slow down a bit. Cloning is a perfect example. That Italian doctor is so caught up in the "gee whiz!" aspect of cloning he seems to have forgoten that his 200 volunteers will result in a dozen kids going through life with horrible birth defects. That is too high a price to pay for the mere quest of knowledge.
``It's like an airplane with two jet engines. You see two nice jet engines and you like it,'' Jirtle said. ``Why? Because you feel comfortable that there's redundancy. In mice and rats, you only have one engine. If it blows, you're done.''
For example, Killian said that only one in 300 cloned sheep embryos takes hold, and up to half of these embryos experience large offspring syndrome.
Basically they're saying that because sheep have "one engine", they're harder to clone. But they're losing half of them! I'm hardly willing to accept that "two engines", each with a fifty percent chance of failure is a significant improvement.
Last post!
I would have called 'organ factory' the most ethical use, and 'have a best friend' down the bottom of the scale :)
Being able to clone ones with the consciousness module disabled might pacify all the ethics weenies, on the organ factory front ?
Yes, I admit I waited until my own story got posted to put this up, but it's something I have a personal stake in so I feel strongly about it. See, here's what I find interesting about this whole thing. Like this parody says, people are just plain afraid of cloning. I don't understand why. Here's my personal objections to some of the arguements made against research into human cloning.
1. Cloning has too high a failure rate, and the destruction of all the zygotes/embryos and/or the birth defects make it immoral to clone at this time. The problem I have with this is that it runs up into the old pro/anti-abortion argument over when a fetus becomes a person. Since the prevailing legal belief over the status of an unborn fetus in the USA is that it is not a full human being and does not have the rights of a human being, I believe this argument must be rejected.
2. It is not right to decide for the fetus when it will be born. (or some other permutation of the "We shouldn't be playing God" argument). See, here we go again trying to define this little cloned fetus as a person. However, this case is a bit different, since it assumes that the fetus will be carried to term and born. My resonse is that since this is built entirely out of my own DNA, that it is as much my right to decide what to do with it as it is my right to be or to decline to be an organ donor, since those organs are pieces of my body as well. The interesting question is, of course, "then what happens when it's born? Will it be a slave, since it is, in a real sense, yours? Or will it be free, and then what does that mean for people who refuse medical treatments or refuse to be donors?" All of which are, indeed, tricky problems.
3. This research takes us into realms we've never been before and should be stopped. I've actually heard this one. To which I respond, where is the sense of adventure? Of discovery? Sure there will be casulties, but for what good? Imagine if people didn't explore medicine because it was "playing God with who lives and dies" or if they never bothered to see what lay beyond deserts or oceans because it was a place they'd never been before, or if we halted all space exploration because we were afraid of meeting an alien which would make us question our place in the Universe! I say bring it on! These are part of the neverending quest of humanity to discover and explore, and should not, and must not, be denied by the small-minded politicians in Congress.
I'm an Angry Clam. You would be angry too if you were a ball of snot in a shell.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I think after the cloned baby is born it will be a baby. Just because she is the sibling (most likely it will be a she in the US since there is a preference for daughters among mothers) of one of her relatives, doesn't change things. She will have all the other rights that a much younger baby sister would have.
I think it is interesting reading the way you males discuss cloning. When I think of human cloning I think of it as a fertility treatment. If a woman can't produce her own eggs, the treatments available to her are rather messy. To harvest eggs from a donor requires pumping the poor woman up with hormones. To take cells to be cloned requires a quick biopsy. Producing a child via cloning does not put an egg donor's health at risk.
I am all for human cloning. This is a therapy that when it becomes safe enough will be one more choice for couples that can't reproduce. Clones will be wanted children. What's not to like?
Please visit ZOID CITY Community and Community Competition http://www.zc2zc3.st
Remember, you don't get adults when you make clones, you get babies. So if you need a new heart, you can't wait 18 or even 16 or 15 years for the clone to become an adult; a baby's heart won't do you much good. If 'organ factory' clonning becomes practical, it will be for the rich, those whose parents can afford to buy them a clone when they're young enough that the clone would be the right age when they might need some parts. An insurance policy, if you will.
OK, so then what happens when your clone needs a part and goes after you to get it?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
This is nice in theory but they still haven't come up with a good reason to clone a human. Besides the purly novel(have a best friend), or completely unethical(organ factory). Maybe they should have more research into "Why would anybody want to be cloned??"
"Even the Devil can quote scripture to suit his purposes" - William Shakespeare