[hoosierham]

Here we goooooo......

It is NOT the cat that died but I suppose some fool will think their lost spouse,child or worker can be cloned and will be the same as the original.

[Arthalion]

Already happens, to a certain extent. A few years back my wife met a couple who were at their wits end with their six year old son. The mother explained that they'd previously conceived another son by IVF, and that the extra embryo's had been banked. Sadly, that little boy was killed when he ran into the street and was hit by a car.

So what did the grieving parents do? They defrosted those embryo's to "make him again"...by their reasoning the second child should have been a "twin" since they were conceived at the same time. These wierdo's even gave the new kid THE SAME NAME as the dead one when he was born.

But they weren't the same. The first boy had curly hair, and the second straight...so the mother had his hair curled regularly. The first boy was quiet, and liked to sit for hours reading his books, while the second wanted to climb trees and play baseball all day...so the mother banned sporting goods from their home and required him to read alone in his room. The first boy was well behaved, while the second threw temper tantrums all the time...so the mother had him drugged up on Ritalin.

It's sad really, because my wife (who has a degree in child psychology and early childhood education) only saw them a couple of times. The mother was adamant that there was something wrong with her child and wanted him "fixed", but after my wife gingerly suggested that she go into counseling herself, the mother exploded, stormed out, and never came back.

These kinds of stories are just going to become more common when cloning reaches us humans. Our personalities and traits are developed though experience and chance, and have little to do with our genetic code. Even identical twins often have extremely divergent personalities and interests...people who assume that cloning will bring their loved ones back are going to be extremely disappointed.

[patton]

"Sometimes, dead is bettah..."