Posted on 11/26/2001 7:12:32 AM PST by The American
While I unpacked at home last Wednesday, the phone rang. I answered it and the voice on the other line said, "Hi, Kevin." I hate that. Add another person to the list of callers who confused me with my brother. Sure, in some ways we're alike, but in most ways we are very different; after all, he's not my clone. If some scientists continue their research, though, in a few years we may have to ask ourselves "which guy is that, the original or his clone?"
Dr. Michael West, president and CEO of Advanced Cell Technologies Inc., announced yesterday that his company had cloned a human embryo. According to West, the company is interested in mining embryos for stem cells. Advanced Cell Technologies' researchers removed DNA from human egg cells, implanted DNA from another human's cells and monitored the eggs until they developed into an embryonic state.
"The entities we're creating are not an individual, they're only cellular life," West said. Now there's a great euphemism -- they are not cloning humans; they are merely creating "entities." How reassuring. Sorry Doc, not buying it. No matter what creative wording you use to describe your company's research, Advanced Cell Technologies is (at least indirectly) in the business of cloning humans. Its mission statement does not say "we will clone humans," but your research and methods will, if allowed to proceed, undoubtedly lead to human cloning.
If this announcement came from Saddam Hussein, the United States would send a few B-52s to Iraq to take care of the evil human cloning research. Since this news came from a private facility in Worcester, Mass., we must use different and nonviolent tactics. But we must stop this research nonetheless.
Human cloning is, to put it bluntly, a bad idea. Just look at West's company's techniques, which could be the groundwork of future cloning methods -- you reject an embryo's individuality because it does not fit a customer's specifications. Then you replace its DNA with the DNA of the customer's choosing. You are tampering with a life -- granted the life is very young and composed of few cells, but it is life nonetheless. That's the equivalent of breaking into a stranger's house and redecorating without permission, only this is worse than throwing away a La-Z-Boy. This trashes an individual's genetic material.
Also, human cloning has dangerous safety risks. Scottish researchers failed a whopping 276 times before successfully cloning Dolly the Sheep. Each cloning sacrifices at least one and, depending on the experience of a lab technician, possibly hundreds more unborn offspring. We cannot call ourselves a civilized society if we sacrifice hundreds of children for the sake of one.
Citing that misguided line of reasoning, cloning advocates propose that we clone the sick for the purpose of growing healthy replacement body parts. Hmm, creating life with the sole purpose of destroying it, how admirable. That puts us one small step above Dungeness crabs, which are known to eat their own offspring. We should not cater to selfish narcissists trying to create copies of themselves.
Human cloning activists also suggest that we allow grieving family members to clone relatives killed in accidents. That'd be good, right? No. Those mourning would just be fooling themselves if they think that a clone would bring back the one they loved. And those are supposed to be the advantages of cloning.
Furthermore, self-absorbed people will no longer die out as a result of human cloning. By cloning themselves, egomaniacs will continue to haunt the rest of society. Terrorists and tyrants will have an endless supply of drones. If we reproduce ourselves in a laboratory, we will cease to evolve as a species. We cannot allow the human race to choose this path. We must do something.
The grim fact is that, if researchers learn how to successfully clone humans, Pandora's Box will be opened. We will be unable to prevent cloning once methods are perfected; therefore, we must enact laws outlawing its research. This includes stopping West's company's research because tinkering with human embryos will inevitably lead to cloning. We need to act quickly to pass new legislation.
The best anti-cloning bill at our disposal right now is the Weldon Bill. The bill, approved in July by the House of Representatives but not yet voted on in the Senate, would ban therapeutic cloning (cloning for stem cell purposes) and criminalize researchers who work on this human cloning technique. This should be expanded to include reproductive cloning and pushed through Congress. America must then join France and Germany as they try to convince the United Nations to adopt an all-encompassing treaty forbidding human cloning.
We as a nation and as a civilized society must block all human cloning efforts. Scientific progress is important, but cloning is not progress; cloning is egocentric. Besides, we do not want a world of copied people. We celebrate our differences and we thrive because of our diversity. Because each person is unique, each person is special -- cloning would put an end to this individuality. Human cloning would destroy what makes us human.
Are twins destroying our humanity? This author apparently thinks so. But then again, this author probably lives in fear of giant radioactive ants, diabolical-yet-tender-hearted computer equipment that has fallen in love with cello players, and probably thinks that above-ground atomic bomb testing was halted primarily to avoid angering Godzilla.
Sheesh.
I suppose identical twins (nature's clones) are not human?
Deep-fried bull$#!t. Our genes aren't what make us human, and copying them would in no way affect our individuality. Twins are clones of each other, but nobody sees any deep philosophical problems with being a twin.
The only problem with human cloning is that current techniques often fail. Future techniques may solve the problem, at which point the moral implications of cloning will be exactly the same as the moral implications of fertility treatments.
Like in the Middle East?
...each person is unique, each person is special -- cloning would put an end to this individuality.
That is not necessarily correct. We know very little about the untimate scientific truth of this stuff. Our identy is determined by more that just eggs and sperm. Identical twins have plenty of individuality. But that is not the point.
The point here is that these proceedures are being used for research to overcome disease. No one is advocating cookie-cutter copies of human beings.
The problem here is ignorance and religious superstition.
For example, the author fears that with clones on the loose, we'll never be sure whom we're talking to. Later he invokes some straw men bereaved relatives and says it's foolish to think a clone can be the same as the original. Then, he goes on to raise a spector of "drone" tyrant armies and to express dismay at "copied people" destroying diversity.
He raises an alarm at the many unsuccessful cloning attempts in Scotland, and then calls for legislation preventing further attempts before somebody perfects the technique.
Sheesh. How do you argue with someone who attempts to demolish his own arguments? My overall impression is that the guy doesn't have a logical neuron in his skull and doesn't have an attention span extending from one thought to the next.
Not just in the Orient. Is it to soon to put in my order for a Kobe Tai clone?
Glad to see you already here correcting misconceptions! Do you get pinged to all these science threads or do you just spend all your time online trying to help clueless Freepers out?
Kobe is a babe and would make a ton of $ though licensing fees.
I'll bet the Arab countries will be the first to obtain these cloned porno stars.
The U.S. will be last.
How do you protect any human if his death can serve the greater good? What if it's found that the best donors of neuron stem cells requires the death of toddlers or teenagers?
I don't understand why it's "morally and ethically" wrong to make a twin of someone that grows to maturity and lives his life, but it's ok to create a twin to kill for spare parts. Please explain.
Also, please support your contention that to support the killing is not religious, but to oppose it is not.
While you're at it, please explain how it's morally and ethically acceptable to have two classes of humans: one whose members can be killed for the benefit of the second, whose members are protected.
I worry that the clones will be considered and treated as property, which can be manipulated at the will of the cloners.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.