Human Cloning

[George_Bonanza]

What are your stances?

I'm definitely against it. What possibly good can come out of this? Cloning human organs and stem cell research, I can see the benefits of. But what good does cloning people serve? Scientific arrogance? The only practical solution I can think of is for childless couples. However, even then, I must protest. Remember, you're not getting a child created out of your love, you're getting a twin sibling of either yourself or your spouse. It will be like watching yourself, in its exact form, grow up. Isn't this disturbing? Isn't this incredibly narcissistic? You could just as well easily adopt, but you just HAVE to have your child a genetic one? Even if it means not actually having a love child but a copy of yourself? Folly.

I'm also worried about the potential discrimination clones will face, especially from religious figures. Clones will be unprecedented new territory in religious dogma. Are they human? Do the have souls? How will clones feel, when religious leaders tell them they have no destination or soul? How will we comfort them, when we have absolutely no clue? And what about civil discrimination? I hardly think people have suddenly improved that we will suddenly be magnanimous to a group of people ripe to be discriminated against. Would they get teased at school? Imagine the trauma. "You're not a real person!" *Shudder*.

I would support cloning, if there was any benefit to it all. But I see none. All I see is a Pandora's box of problems we don't need, just to satisfy some genes-vain parents or arrogant scientists. Clone animals. Clone organs. But leave people alone.

PS Whatever happened to "Eve" and those dumbass Raelians?

[alexwcovington]

1. There's no real point

Stem cells are really the only valid thing at this point. Cloning a whole person is an exercise in vanity at best.

[toddzilla]

2. well i'm against it , but it's pointless

we will do it, because the human race is way too busy trying to figure out how to do things rather than why to do them.

[The Captain]

3. Learning about Cloning

Some things you may wish to know about cloning before sending it up the river as immoral or useless are:

- Clones do not look identical to the original specimen not are they. "Copying" is nothing to do with cloning. Each individual that is cloned will be unique. This is proven, scientific fact.

- Cloned children are forseen to be unloved by their parents. For healthy people with normal sex drives, if we do not carefully use contraception, children occur. Because children get created this way sexual reproduction is more likely to create unwanted, and hence possibly unloved, children than human cloning.

- There will not be a race of Super-clones. Populations follow the Law of Regression to the Mean. Thus, the cloned people would marry and reproduce with non-cloned people and their children would be genetically diverse.

- Someone mentioned to me that clones would not have souls. This is a purely religious question. If you belive that everyone has a soul, then I would say yes, a breathing, thinking, self aware person, though cloned, would still have a soul.

- Would clones of the same genotype share power such as ESP? Pure science fiction. Sientists who work on clones have evil motives? Pure Hollywood, see Frankenstein and don't forget to check under your bed for monsters.

So anyway, just thought I would throw some information at you so that you can make a more balanced judgement. It's hard to make a decision about something based on nothing but bad press. I'm not a scientist or anything but a little research goes a long way.

If you think cloning is what you should be scared of, you wouldn't want to look into genetic engineering or neno-engineering. Both will change the world in ways that cloning won't hold a candle to.

[ScreamingMeemie]

6. Hello and welcome to DU!!

:hi:

[newyawker99]

8. Hi The Captain!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[George_Bonanza]

10. Clones WOULD look identical to its donor

Although its personality would never be the same as its donor's.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0193005.html

[Nikia]

4. Depends on how it is done

If clones are considered full humans, there would less problems because they really would be full humans.
The ethics problem occurrs if for some reason that they are not seen as full humans and are not legally. I don't think it would be difficult to propagate this false belief. If this were the case, clones could become slaves or worse involuntary organ donors. As far as the involuntary organ donor thing went, current people always could be assured that they had a perfect match if they should be in need of an organ. With increases in medical technology, if it is done right, a person with enough money to pay for it could greatly extend their lives if they replaceded aging organs.
I have not recently read how current cloning technology is going, but I have heard that clones may have shorter life spans since the cell that they are cloned from is already adult.

[DrWeird]

5. I can't think of any good reason why not.

Assuming nobody gets hurt. Who am I to tell people what they can and cannot do?

[Piltdown13]

7. I'm strongly against reproductive cloning

First of all, there have been very few experiments with nonhuman animals, and some of those that have been conducted have not been terribly encouraging -- i.e., all the medical problems and accelerated aging that Dolly the sheep had, the hundreds of failed trials before they got ONE cloned monkey. The fact is, we simply don't know enough about the risks to the clone to justify attempting to create human clones, especially considering that there is no pressing medical reason to forge ahead with reproductive cloning (no one is going to die because they couldn't have themselves or a spouse/child/whoever cloned). If we ever develop a cloning technique that is shown to be safe, then maybe we should consider it - although I do confess to a somewhat uneasy feeling about the whole endeavor.

Having said that, I have to say I've always been dumbfounded by some of the arguments and questions that get brought up with regards to potential clones' legal status -- i.e., would they have legal rights? would they be considered property? Even theological ones -- do they have souls? To my mind, OF COURSE they would be considered 100% human, with all the rights that you and I have, and certainly they would have souls, if you believe in that concept. After all, we currently have thousands and thousands of the genetic equivalent of clones living today -- identical twins. I've never heard anyone say that identical twins share a soul between them (or that only one has a soul) so I don't quite understand the argument that a clone might not have a soul. As far as the legal question goes, I can't see how a cloned child would be different from any other child. Yes, that specific child would not be possible without the genetic contribution of the cell donor -- but the same can be said for children conceived using IVF, or for children conceived the old-fashioned way for that matter. I'd like to think that we'd be enlightened enough to realize that a cloned child is still a full human individual, no matter the mechanics of his/her creation.

Now, as far as therapeutic cloning and stem cell research goes, I vote for full steam ahead.

[George_Bonanza]

9. No doubt traditional religious organizations would not look kindly upon

Clones. I mean, a person engineered by people? This is beyond IVF. This is about replicating your gene to create a twin version of yourself. I believe legally, clones would be protected, but like blacks and gays, they'd be discriminated against. All this for what? If there's a good reason to clone a full human being, I'd be all ears. But all I can see right now is either organ exploitation or genetically vain parents. Neither reason seems good enough to open this Pandora's box. Not to mention it's incredibly dangerous right now. Dolly had a lot of problems. But we will reach a day when cloning will become doable. Should we? IMHO, no. Unless the whole world becomes largely sterile, which is a possibility.