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EU Parliament Votes To Ban Cloning of Farm Animals

sciencehabit writes: The European Parliament today voted to ban the cloning of all farm animals as well as the sale of cloned livestock, their offspring, and products derived from them. The measure, which passed by a large margin, goes beyond a directive proposed by the European Commission in 2013, which would have implemented a provisional ban on the cloning of just five species: cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and horses. The supporters of the ban cited animal welfare concerns, claiming that only a small percentage of cloned offspring survive to term, and many die shortly after birth. The ban does not cover cloning for research purposes, nor does it prevent efforts to clone endangered species.

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  1. Re:What's the point of cloning a pet? by GrooveNeedle · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You're right of course, but I wanted to add that a decent example of this was in a Michael Keaton comedy, of all places, called Multiplicity. The basic premise was he had too much to do, got a clone of himself to handle his job (architect or something), while he spent time with the wife and kids and still did some household chores.

    Eventually, the original wanted more leisure time and created a second clone for the household chores. Ultimately, the architect copy became more manly (grunting, drank beer, roughhoused, deeper voice) and the household cleaner became more feminine. After a while, neither clone wanted to do the grunt work and they made a clone of a clone...which turned out to be less intelligent than the others.

    Long story short, it showed how a clone (even though it had the same memories of the original up to the point of cloning) would eventually branch off and have their own experiences that shaped their needs and wants.