I want a clone!

[clydefo]

President Bush says that he thinks "cloning humans for spare parts
is wrong" but he didn't say why.

That is exactly what I want. In case I need a liver or whatever.

Naturally the clone will be lobotomized so it is incapable of ever
achieving consciousness or having any feeling or awareness.

Why in the world would anyone object to that?

[Demosthenes]

What is wrong with cloning?

From a pure scientific stand point, absolutely nothing.
From a moral aspect, somethings.
From a religious view, everything.

People claim we are altering what God intends for us. This translates into: we are altering fate, else if it were not fate, then we would not be changing everything. There are things to be said about this. Those who do not suffer from any maladies that might be solved by genetic research are most likely to be against it. They got dealt a fair hand, screw the rest. They do not say this, but all their actions clearly point at this. Give them a disability and see how many and how fast they turn coat. Those who do suffer want and sometimes need this research just to stay alive.

Are we changing what God intends. Probably, but so what? How does this differ from the past 1000 years of medicinal research? We have cured, prevented, innoculated, and even destroyed and created diseases. No one argues that CPR is tampering with the cycle of life. Those who argue this point of interferring with God's plans are idiots, plain and simple. Most everyone in the US has been so heavily medically modified that I doubt their God would even recognize them.

Next, the blood on our hands. Fact is, they remove the forerunner of the brain during the fetal stages (I will spare the Latin). This means the "thing" is a fully functional brain-dead entity (like most people I know). So, does hacking it up into pieces constitute as murder? Who knows? Do you remember Bravo? The United States deliberately used the people of the Marshall Islands to test the effects of nuclear radiation and fallout. Those islands are basically uninhabitable, radioactive sand, radioactive water, radioactive coconuts, and so on. We destroyed a whole country which was our protectorate and no one even celebrated. So, if hacking up braindead bodies to save others is the worst thing the human race has done, then it will be a surprise for me.

Respectfully,

Demosthenes

[Tuf]

Farming Human Life for consumption? Seems to be a very alarming concept, One that I certainly hope I don't live long enough to see. Just my intial reaction anyway.

[mbossman2]

My issues with cloning are:

At what point is a developing human embryo imbued with a "soul" (or the essence that makes each of us unique)? Until this is truly defined and identified, we, as both a society and individuals, have no right to tamper with that life.

Also, I think that with cloning, we will develop second class citizens, those with the rights to those inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (to quote a "minor" document) and those that will never have those rights. Doesn't that undermine a major portion of the basis of our (The United States of America) nation?

Until both of these issues are addressed in such a way that protects the rights (both the secular and religious) of all involved, we really should steer clear of this area. The ability/techniques of cloning will still be there, waiting for discovery or development, after these issues have been resolved. Science and scientists need to understand that their developments do not occur in a tidy little vacuum and these developments can (and generally do) have serious social, religious and political ramifications that need to be addressed. We should not take the stance of "Lets do it and figure out the ramifications and how to deal with them later", that is poor planning and can end in disaster.

My final point is: Would you knowingly end another human being's life to preserve your own life, that was not directly being threatend by that other human being?

[LawyerRon]

Welcome back Clyde, we missed you.

[Jenni]

From a moral standpoint, I think that cloning is absolutely wrong, no doubt about it. Creating a life, just to destroy it for my own benefit? How could that ever possibly be right?

From other standpoints, I can see all sorts of problems. Who's gonna be in charge of these clones? Do you just go see your Dr. and have one made? Then what happens to it? Where does it go? Surely you don't want a braindead version of yourself at home with you. Do we put them in some sort of "nursing home"? And who's to say that someone couldn't make another clone of you, only not of the braindead variety? And take over your identity. After all, this clone would be "you", would it not?

[Carl Price]

Originally posted by Jenni From a moral standpoint, I think that cloning is absolutely wrong, no doubt about it. Creating a life, just to destroy it for my own benefit? How could that ever possibly be right? From other standpoints, I can see all sorts of problems. Who's gonna be in charge of these clones? Do you just go see your Dr. and have one made? Then what happens to it? Where does it go? Surely you don't want a braindead version of yourself at home with you. Do we put them in some sort of "nursing home"? And who's to say that someone couldn't make another clone of you, only not of the braindead variety? And take over your identity. After all, this clone would be "you", would it not?

Couldn't happen. First of all, the clone's brain would not have the years of input yours does. (S)he would not recognize your spouse, your kids, etc. although basically the brain is the same. When they can clone the knowledge in the human brain, then you have a problem.

Second, this clone will not have the "life defects" bodily that you have. If you are a mother, it will not have born children. If you have skin cancer from a life time of being in the sun, it won't have it. If you are obese, because of a lifetime of overeating, it won't be.

I don't know where I stand on this subject. I don't think the cloned material would have a spirit, so it should be okay to use it for what is intended. But what if I'm wrong, and using the material murders another human being, like abortion does. This question has to have a concrete answer before I would be willing to clone myself.


I don't think they can yet clone an adult. I don't think they will ever be able to but I could be wrong. Therefore to have organs available for transplant would take approx eighteen years if you want an adult organ. Someone would have to raise that clone and I don't think anyone would be able to take a liver from an eighteen year old human to put in a 60 year old human. If the clone grows so long that would indicate a spirit, a viable human being, that could not be killed for parts. Sorry, you don't get a clone as a repository for spare parts in this scenario. When you can so to the doctor and have him take a few good cells and clone you as you are I would think that then you would have all the spare parts you want. This is not available now, but it may be possible. Therefore, I support continued research of this subject.

[Paul Victorey]

One question which should be considered, given the current creation of embyros for research purposes, is where the dividing line between "living human being" and "living human cells" lies. Certainly, if you took a biopsy of any part of my body, you would obtain living human cells, but I don't think it's at all immoral to do research upon such a collection of cells.

So, is research on 6-cell embryos different, morally, from taking 6 cells from an adult and experimenting with them?

[mbossman2]

Originally posted by Paul Victorey So, is research on 6-cell embryos different, morally, from taking 6 cells from an adult and experimenting with them?

I believe it does:

Cells taken from you via biopsy have no chance into developing into a human being as they are already differentiated and can only reproduce into like cells (striated muscle cells become striated muscle cells only etc, organs are composed of many different types of cells, not just "heart cells"), whereas a 6 cell embryo, will, given time, develop into a human being as the cells have not reached the point of differentiation.

its been a real long time since i took cellular biology so i can't remember when differentiation takes place in embryonic development.

What needs to occur in the cloning technology area is to "un-differentiate" cells and re-direct their development into needed tissue type/organ, that would bypass most of the moral issues (mine included) to the concept of cloning.

[Paul Victorey]

That is, in a way, what cloning is. You take a fertilized egg, remove its nucleus and inject the nucleus of any cell from the target creature. It is the cytoplasm and the cell membrane which determines cell differentiation -- and there is no known way, nor theoretical way to synthetically create the necessary environment within a cell to undifferentiate it. So they take a pluripotent cell (a fertilized egg) and replace its nucleus (and thus, its DNA) while keeping the rest of the cell intact.

And, it really doesn't address the issue you're concerned with, because if you took any cell, and if you could somehow "undifferentiate it" -- i.e. generate an embryonic stem cell from a normal cell without the use of a fertilized egg -- the new embryonic stem cell would have the capacity to become a fully-functional human if given the proper environment, too.

[mbossman2]

But the bulk of the cloning articles that I have seen (I admit that is very limited as I left biology for the wonderful world of computers), the drive has been to clone a complete and functioning individual being (dolly the sheep comes to mind), not the development of an organ.

Which brings me back to my original concern of: at what point does the "soul" get imbued into the developing organism. that has never been defined, and until it is, this is a ground that needs to be avoided due to the bigger picture implications of terminating a Life.

Like I said in a previous post, science and knowledge does not exist in a vacuum or ivory tower, the implications of end use of research need to be addressed, the techniques and key piece of information will still be waiting there (just like they are now) until the bigger picture issues are resolved.

[Computer Hobbyist]

If we are talking about growing clumps of liver, brain or heart cells, why not? If we are talking about full copies of people, why? I think we can grow all the humans we need the old fashioned way.

CH

[Demosthenes]

My final point is: Would you knowingly end another human being's life to preserve your own life, that was not directly being threatened by that other human being?

Of course. What do you think war is? Two countries disagree, so they arm people with guns and send them off to fight other people who they have not met and really have no reason to shoot at. Battlefield psychology is an amazing thing. You shoot people only because you think they will shoot at you, but they are shooting at you only because they think you are trying to shoot them. No one is directly threatened. Our insanity makes us think we are so we kill them before they can directly threaten us. There is a quote from All Quiet on the Western Front that beautifully sums this up. I cannot do it justice.

Continuing on the war trend, that is eventually what cloning is leading toward. Everything is rooted in or eventually turns into an art of killing. The reason we stumble along with genetic research is to understand the human genome. Every little step brings us closer to understanding it. And what is the genome is but the end all API. It is a language of such utter simplicity which has had billions of years to evolve into the most complex system yet found. And the people who first discover how to write and modify it will have unimaginable power. Imagine its war implications, like custom tailored designer viruses. The point of war is not to kill, but to remove the enemies ability to retaliate. Killing usually does a good job of removing this ability, however. But, if you could create a genetic disease that, oh lets say, removes involuntary actions like breathing, heartbeat, blinking, etc, then how effective would an army be that has to stop and remember to breathe? That is the last thing on your mind in a foxhole. And that is just simple stuff. Once we learn more, we do much more interesting things. How about genetic Alzheimer's? If it could be done, we can make enemies forget why they are fighting, or better yet, make it so they forget which color uniforms they are supposed to shoot at. Unfortunately, I really do not think this is entirely impossible. The list goes on.

As for morality: They remove the forerunner of the brain when it is just a collection of cells. Modern medicine defines death by the lack of brainwaves since heartbeat can obviously be manipulated. So, if you remove the brain when it is a collection of cells, do you think those couple of dozen of cells are alive? That is the moral question. However, the fact is, the United States is the only one who follows the rules. I mean who really cared about the Geneva Convention except the US? If the US does not clone a human, other countries will. Simple as that. And if scientists go to third world countries to do research, then what keeps that information from falling into the wrong hands? Do you want the US to regulate it or would you rather see Mexico regulate it? The technology is upon us, and it will be done, if it has not been already through secret means.

Respectfully,

Demosthenes

[Colonel Sanders]

I think what needs to be done is to work out a way to produce a clone that will never develope feelings, kinda like Data on Star Trek(anyone know who I'm talking about?). The big challenge is when you make that clone it is a baby, but you need parts older than baby parts.

"Is ending another life worth saving you own life?" While, technically your ending a zerox of your own life, which should at best not develop such a stron love to be alive as we do.

In my opinion, God(If you believe or want to believe in God) intended for us to discover cloning technology, and thus we should refine it some more and use it.

Logan

[Xayd]

Originally posted by mbossman2 Which brings me back to my original concern of: at what point does the "soul" get imbued into the developing organism. that has never been defined, and until it is, this is a ground that needs to be avoided due to the bigger picture implications of terminating a Life.

That's the argument right there. Cloning a human for medical purposes must be done with the assumption that there is no 'soul', no right to life, no afterlife, or anything that goes along with all that stuff for the clone-ee.

The technology exists, so it's only a matter of time before it's put to use. If you guys will remember your history, the Cathloic church imprisoned Galileo because they didn't like the fact that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe. Throwing him in jail didn't change that fact, and it didn't change people from finding out about it either.

The interesting question, at least for the United States, is how the anti-clone people will try to legislate the ban of human cloning. They can't put any religious belief into the law, or it will be summarily stricken down by the courts. Yet the religious arguments are the only arguments they have against it.

[mantapc]

People will create clones or cloned body parts for one reason: To Live Longer. But why do we avoid death at all costs? Are we afraid of where we are going? So we spend millions upon millions of dollars developing research that leads up to the cloning of human beings. Even if it is only a body part, it had to be grown from a human being. What gives us the right to take the life a another person in order to save our own life from our INEVITABLE death?!?!

[clydefo]

mbossman2 suggests that we hold off on cloning until
“At what point a developing human embryo is imbued with a
‘soul’ …is truly defined and identified”.

Sorry, but I can’t wait that long, and I don’t think that we should hold up progress to accommodate the “supernaturalists”.

He, Jenni and mantapc say that using and destroying another
“person”, “human being” or a “life” in this way is wrong.

I argue that a mindless “spare-parts” clone is not a “person” or a “human being” and does not have a “life”.


Thanks for the welcome, LawyerRon. I’ve been wandering about raging against
Ralph Nader but 9/11 woke me up. Don’t mess with Texas!

[mantapc]

clydefo , you are approaching this issue in a very ingornant way....

[clydefo]

mantapc,
Thanks.

[LawyerRon]

mantapc,
clydefo may be a lot of things but ignorant isn't one of them. Trust me.

[troysvihl]

the Luddites always come out and object to pretty much every new scientific advancement. Usually with some sort of vague statement along the lines of "We're not ready yet" or "It's immoral."

The exact same arguements were used when the steam engine was first developed.


Speaking of Nader, he gave a talk at my school the other day. He's so ignorant, it's scary. So by all means, rage against him. Loonies like him and Buchanan are dangerous.

[SARGE]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by clydefo
[
Sorry, but I can’t wait that long, and I don’t think that we should hold up progress to accommodate the “supernaturalists”.



Hold up "progress"? Depends on one's definition of progress. The atom bomb grew out of progress, as did learning how to make a bullet exit a barrel. Space exploration is considered progress, now we can drop a nuke down a smoke stack from around the world. Satellites were a progress, now we can use them to guide said nuke. Crude examples but we can trust mankind to put his dirty footprint on anything, to take a newly discovered "progress" and turn it into something stinky.

I'm unsure about the use of "supernaturalists". Might be a slam against those who believe in a soul and/or afterlife. They've been called worse...

[Xayd]

Originally posted by mantapc What gives us the right to take the life a another person in order to save our own life from our INEVITABLE death?!?!

Because the more advances that we make in repairing and modifying the body, the closer we are to eliminating it and all of its shortcomings.

When the brain can be sustained outside of the body in an artificial frame...well, the quote goes something like...

And in strange aeons, even death may die

[HAL9000]

OK, if it is possible to "kill death", think about this, do you really want to live forever?

[troysvihl]

I do

[HAL9000]

And what would you do after 100, 200, 300 years? Personally, I think you would actually welcome death when boredom sets in.

[troysvihl]

Well, I doubt I would get bored after just a couple of hundred years. But I'd sure like the option of finding out.

[Paul Victorey]

Hey, I could go for a few centuries of life. Especially in the current times, with the rapid changes of culture and technology; new things happen every day, and the world can drastically change in the space of years, not centuries.

[clydefo]

SARGE,
Some claim that nuclear weapons are a godsend. Without them, the Soviet Union and USA might have
very likely fought a disastrous conventional war after WWII. Given the concept of Mutually Assured
Destruction (MAD), the possession of nukes by Pakistan and India may well force them to resolve
their differences peacefully. I don’t disagree that mankind can screw things up, but we can straighten
things out also. Our air and water are cleaner than they used to be, for instance.

By “supernaturalist”, I mean someone who claims that events in the rational, physical world are controlled or influenced by supernatural forces or entities such as voodoo, gods and goddesses, spirits and ghosts,etc.
They never offer any coherent explanation of how such things work, or any proof of their claims beyond
their own “faith” in their correctness. If they had their way, mankind would still be mired in the
Middle Ages.

[Nuclear Krusader]

At the pace we're going, I hardly believe that the world lasts another 100 years.

Living forever, not really my first choice. Well, I do believe in God, and He is my final and ultimate goal. Life is nothing but a chance to earn my own ticket to Heaven. And when I think that after dying I'll meet God in all His glory, well to me death is not that bad.
I'm not saying that I have death wishes (in fact, if I blow my head off I'll never see God, all I'll ever get will be a fiery ocean of lava), only that, to me, life is just a journey not a destination.

Which brings me back to my original concern of: at what point does the "soul" get imbued into the developing organism. that has never been defined, and until it is, this is a ground that needs to be avoided due to the bigger picture implications of terminating a Life.

Perhaps from now on I will be called a "supernaturalist" by some of you, but I think that from the very moment in which those two haploid cells unite, a soul is imbued and a new human being is born. He is brainless, heartless and whatever "less" you want, but he sure is already a human being. Killing him is a murder.

Of course. What do you think war is?

Just remember that in war the other soldiers can shoot back (unless you nuke them, of course). And these poor beings, oh pardon me, this "fully functional brain-dead entities", cannot even defend themselves.

If we are talking about growing clumps of liver, brain or heart cells, why not? If we are talking about full copies of people, why? I think we can grow all the humans we need the old fashioned way.

I agree completely, because I'm not against progress. If men colonize the galaxy, Excellent! If men cure most of today's deadly diseases using genetic engineering, That's wonderful! But discretion is adviced too.

IMHO we men can do a lot of wonderful (and useful) things, but there is a limit.

The goal can never be justified by the means. If the means are wrong, the goal will be corrupted by them.