South Korean Cloners In Hot Water Over Donors

Xookliba writes "Last February, South Korean scientists succeeded in the world's first human clone. Read the slashdot article here. As it turns out, they might have not been the best abassadors for this technology as they are currently mired in an ethical scandal over the source of the eggs used in the experiment. The field definitely does not need this type of debacle. No doubt this will fuel the argument of those who oppose all types of cloning, including the beneficial therapeutic cloning that this research was aimed at. Read the story here."

Comments

Re:Egg donations

[oroshana]

I love you. That's a great point. We "abuse" the dignity of sentient beings all the time.

Re:Uptight

[Opius17]

I guess i just wanted to point out that these stem cell grown parts will only be usefull to the one person whose original cells were used. Most embryonic stem cell research has been relatively unsuccessfull because they have been using fertilized embryos which have a different genetic make-up than the person intended to benefit from them, thus bringing up the issue of rejection inherent when doing a normal organ transplant or other such procedure. Adult stem cell research (such as nasal stem cells or bone marrow stem cells) has shown much more promise than embryonic stem cell research without the inherent moral arguments.

Re:"Beneficial therapeutic cloning"??

[Saganaga]

You say, "In my mind, it's not a human until it has some form of sentient thought". A question: do infants have sentient thought? How do you measure sentient thought, anyway? How about severely mentally retarded people, or people with advanced Alzheimers? Are they not human either? This isn't a theoretical question.

You also say "if it was created specifically for this purpose by cloning then it would never have existed otherwise so we're not taking away any more than we add". Well, that is an interesting argument, very utilitarian I must say.

Consider this scenario: a woman has a child for the specific purpose of providing a donor heart to another woman's child who is sick. Of course, the heart will not be ready until the donor child is older, let's say six years old. At that point, the donor child's heart is removed and given to the other child. Of course, this means that the donor child will die. But since it was "created specifically for this purpose" (according to your terms), it's perfectly ethical.

I hope you can see the problem here. Once it becomes possible to create a human life specifically for the purpose of harvesting it at some later point, a dangerous line is crossed.

Re:"Beneficial therapeutic cloning"??

[Xookliba]

"Unborn human being"? What I would call it is a tissue sample created in the lab. Is "unborn human being" what you would call those millions of embryoes created each year for infertile couples? Oh, let's not forget that 80% of those will never see the light of day. If you ask me, by your definition that sounds not just like Nazi's but a freakin' holocaust! But that's all perfectly legal, of course. Just because you have your particular defintion of human life doesn't mean the rest of us should suffer because of it. When I am old and suffering from Parkinson's so bad my whole body shakes, I will be glad when a doctor suggests some type of stem cell treatment. If this medical advancement is distasteful to you, then I suggest you stop going to the doctor and start practising holistic medicine, because just about all of modern medicine has grown from research that has been conducted (to the detriment on some group) through experimentation.

Such a shame

[Pi_0's don't shower]

Even Nancy Reagan is for stem cell research. The unfortunate point is that people (much like with abortion, -1 flamebait) get on their high moral horse and preach about the sanctity of life. But what they miss is that stem cell research is about saving lives. Human cloning is an inseparable issue from this, IMO. Before everyone starts making "slippery slope" arguments, think about what can be learned/gained, scientifically and medically, and then tell me with what certainty we should throw it out because it instinctively feels like something we shouldn't be doing?

Re:Such a shame

[Saganaga]

"But what they miss is that stem cell research is about saving lives".: I don't think anyone is missing this. But it's a question of ethics. Is it right to kill 1 innocent person to save 2 other people? The strict utilitarian worldview would say "yes, of course". By this logic, people with AIDS should probably be rounded up and put into concentration camps, maybe even executed, because we'll be saving the lives of all those to whom they might spread the disease in the future. You can think of all kinds of other examples.

In fact, we could probably make the case for killing any one person to give their organs to people who would die without transplants. Just think, your heart, kidneys, liver, whatever, could "save people".

Re:"Beneficial therapeutic cloning"??

[cft_128]

This only begs the question: beneficial to whom? Isn't there someone you're forgetting, someone who doesn't benefit from so-called "therapeutic" cloning, namely the unborn human being who is being harvested for parts for the benefit of others? How is this different from the Nazi-era human experimentation that we all (hopefully) abhor?

Did you RTFA or just have a knee jerk reaction? Or maybe you watched The Boys from Brazil and think that is the Nazi cloning reference? These were not even 'fertilized' cells... they were unfertilized eggs (the same ones that get flushed from the female reproductive system every month) that had the nucleus removed then replaced with the donor cell's nucleus. No sperm swimming up to nice eggs to fertilize them, the eggs don't have *any* genetic material that came from the egg donors, all they are are little cell duplication factories that duplicate the drop in genetic materiel.

All that aside, if they did not obtain the eggs in an ethical mano, then there are big concerns that need to be addressed.

Re:Skeptics be damned

[shadowbearer]

So, let's leave it up to the "donors" (the thousands of women who have abortions every month). How about a simple check box: "Are you willing to donate your childs/fetuses'/gamete tissue to medical science for research on stem cells?" We all know there are many abortions undertaken for purely medical reasons involving the health of the mother, and other reasons such as rape+pregnancy.

I know damned well this won't satisfy the radicals on both sides, but I think it would be a reasonable compromise; let's face it, whether or not abortion is legal, abortions are going to happen. It's arguably more moral to allow them to happen in supervised and licensed clinics where there is less risk for the woman.

In that sense, arguing for pro-choice (and I am, although I see the arguments on both sides, once having disagreed with someone who aborted a potential child of mine), doesn't it make sense from a moral and ethical standpoint to let the woman decide what should be done with the tissue that is taken from her own body?

One thing that this whole debate lacks to a large extent is a rational decision as to whose choice it is to allow a fetus to come to term. What I find disgusting about the whole debate is that it's come down to whether it's the choice of the majority (ie, government), rather than the choice of the people involved, to make the decision. I fail to understand what role, if any, the federal government should play in those decisions.

If the people on either side don't like what I've posted, I don't really care. Just think about it, and think about this: While you argue, you are screwing up a lot of lives, and most of them are people who are grown and already contribute to society. That kind of damage is of a higher magnitude than ending the life of an early term fetus is, to society as a whole.

If we have a dysfunctional society, we might as well be living back in the Dark Ages.

SB