Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.