What's Wrong With Cloning?

MHGinTN ^ | 1/31/2003 | MHGinTN

[MHGinTN]

The President called for a ban on cloning in his State of the Union Address. So, what's wrong with cloning?

Every individual life is a continuum hallmarked by growth and development. We are invited, through the media, to differentiate reproductive cloning from therapeutic cloning, but both conceive a cloned individual human being, in vitro. Scientists seeking to exploit therapeutic cloning would have us believe that, because their goal doesn't include life support to the birth stage, their 'form' of cloning is okay. Far from it; it's a worse application of the technology. Therapeutic cloning seeks to conceive 'designer' individual human beings, give them life support either in a growth medium or a woman's body, then kill and harvest from these individuals the target tissues for which the cloned being was conceived.

It is important to realize that an embryo IS an individual human being: goals of cloning scientists bear witness to the hidden truth that they are conceiving a unique human being, whether for reproductive or therapeutic aims. Giving tacit acceptance to a proven lie --that the embryo is not an individual human life-- is bad enough, we’ve done this for more than thirty years, but to embrace cannibalism founded on such a lie is far more degenerate.

Tacit acceptance for manipulating individual human life has lead from in vitro fertilization to partial birth infanticide, proving the bankruptcy of continuing moderate acceptance. We are now staring at cannibalism in the name of whatever you care to call it. Even an embryo no bigger than a grain of sugar is an individual human life. Is it acceptable to kill that individual for their body parts? If you think that it is, at least know that it is cannibalism.

[unspun]

"...power of government to limit people's choices."

Lean forward and I'll whisper something to you. ;-) Limiting people's choices (wisely) is the purpose of government.

[unspun]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0310226279/qid=1044089412/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/102-5295203-3037733?v=glance&s=books

[tortoise]

When there is a heartbeat and brain activity.

And even that is arguable, since higher brain regions don't function for many months after birth. As I recall, humans are born with essentially a reptilian brains and a mass of non-functional higher brain tissue. If I am not mistaken, the neurons for all the higher brain functions are lacking "parts" to make them functional (e.g. myelin), which is only created months after birth and the higher brain then bootstraps itself. The parts are missing because the brain wouldn't fit out the birth canal if you had them.

Of course, this puts some people's claims of "remembering" their birth in a highly suspect light, seeing as how there was nothing to remember it with (since they lacked any type of higher brain at the time). But then, that was usually the domain of New Age hippies anyway...

[sneakypete]

Thanks for the link,but I am already about 6 books behind in my reading.

[sneakypete]

And even that is arguable, since higher brain regions don't function for many months after birth.

I stated what I did in a effort to keep it simple. You may well be right,but I'm not knowledgable enough to be competent to discuss it at that level.

[oceanperch]

My son said if he could have a healthy clone of himself he would name him "left foot"

He is looking to replace me as his careprovider and knows how unreliable others have been in taking on this task.

I have not communicated with him all the aspects of having a 'left foot' (we communicate augmetively which can take hours sometimes) if it is ever a reality in his lifetime I will worry about getting deep into all the issues of producing another human soley to be his careprovider in life.`

[snowstorm12]

I think with cloning, stealing others DNA to have their own celebrity could be a problem (like stalkers). Hopefully only reputable scientists will allow people to clone themselves if that's what they want, like a form of human asexual reproduction and whoevers dna was used would be the parent of the clone. I think cloning will eventually happen and it can't really be stopped. I think cloning successfully is a long way off anyways.

I think they should keep trying with animals before they start on humans. I don't think we really need people suffering deformities.

[weikel]

Im against abortion after 7 weeks but there is no way the fetus is close to sentient before then.

[snowstorm12]

Actually, the human conceptus is in the species of humans, not some other species then suddenly upon arriving at a specific cellular accumulation, instantly into the human species. In logical flow, species designation comes first, then ages of a member of the species, based on form and function.

I think most people agree that a fetus/zygote or whatever is definately human life, so is an individual sperm and egg. What everyone can't agree on is at what point does that potential to become a human being/person suddenly become a human being/person actualized to be deserving of human rights. I say at the start of the third trimester or viability, before 24 weeks the lungs aren't developed, even with the greatest artificial breathing machine ever created, it wouldn't survive. It has also devolped the complex linking of nuerons and has the ability to think. Fetal thinking comes even later than a developed lung.

[tortoise]

It has also devolped the complex linking of nuerons and has the ability to think. Fetal thinking comes even later than a developed lung.

The only part of the brain that is functional in a fetus is the brain stem and other very low-level parts required to operate the machinery such as heart and lungs. There is no "thinking" part of the brain until something like six months after the baby is born, and even then it takes some additional time for high-level brain functions to coalesce after the brain tissue is finally functional.

[cpforlife.org]

- Dr. Jerome Lejeune, late professor and world-renowned geneticist, University of Descarte Paris: "Life is present from the moment of conception." Dr. Jerome Lejeune, known as "The Father of Modern Genetics," also testified that human life begins at conception before the Louisiana Legislature's House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice on June 7, 1990.

Dr. Lejeune explained that within three to seven days after fertilization we can determine if the new human being is a boy or a girl. "At no time," Dr. Lejeune said, "is the human being a blob of protoplasm. As far as your nature is concerned, I see no difference between the early person that you were at conception and the late person, which you are now. You were, and are, a human being."

Dr. Lejeune also pointed out that each human being is unique -- different from the mother -- from the moment of conception. Recent discoveries by Dr. Alec Jeffrey’s of England further prove...”it's not any longer a theory that each of us is unique."

Kelly Thorman was born prematurely in 1971 at 21½ weeks after conception*. This picture was taken three weeks later. Sadly, Kelly died of pneumonia (this is a particular danger with premature babies). When she died, nobody said that "part of the mother's body" had gone or that "the products of conception" had disappeared.

Since the early 1970's with medical advances, babies born at 21 weeks are survivng in rapidly growing numbers and are fine. Thousands of babies every year!

Kelly was "wanted" and given the best available care, while babies born alive in abortions who may have survived if given care have been left to die - although at this stage measures are often taken, and are recommended by the British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (RCOG), to ensure the delivery of a dead baby. With advances in technology and in understanding of human fetal development, premature babies' chances of survival are improving. The RCOG stated in Preterm Labour and its Consequences (1985) that: "In 1984, 72 per cent of live born infants of 22 to 27 weeks' gestation* born at the Bristol Maternity Hospital survived, as did 64 per cent of infants of 500 to 999 grammes birthweight." These percentages had increased on those of previous years.

As of 1992, the number of abortions performed on babies 21 weeks gestation and older is more than 22,000 every year (in the US alone). 4

Were this baby still in her mother's womb, she could be "legally" killed. In fact, based on the statistics, the very day this baby was born, at least 60 babies of the same or greater development were aborted (in the US alone).

Isn't it ironic that a baby is safer outside the womb than inside. The same baby: Inside the womb can be "legally" killed, outside the womb cannot be "legally" killed. Currently, that is our law. Are we so primitive-minded as to ignore basic rights because of location? The womb has become the most dangerous place in America.

The references above from Randy Alcorn, writing in Pro Life Answers to Pro Choice Arguments (Portland: Multnomah Books, 1992).

"I have also said that anyone who doesn't feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don't know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn." Ronald Reagan

My thoughts: These truths have been known for decades, and yet Christian schools are graduating future voters and government leaders whose record of defending life is no better than the national average. The reason is simple: They are not being taught what they must know regarding the SANCTITY OF LIFE. Can we honestly expect to defeat this growing culture of death if we do not thoroughly educate our students now, so they will vote and rally against it? We have been fighting this battle with our strong arm tied behind our back unnecessarily!

[MHGinTN]

There is no doubt that the product of human conception is a human life, an individual (or individuals, as in identical twins). To exploit these lives, these individual human lives, is cannibalism. Sneakypete above tried to deny this by speciously asserting that no one was going to eat thse individual lives. Take a look at the definition of cannibalize, then look at what is done in therapeutic cloning. Folks, cloning or body parts from an individual human life that will be killed for those parts is cannibalism.

To apply an arbitrary designation for worth at any stage/age chosen along the continuum of an individual human life, citing form and function as reason enough befits superstition, not science. Science has proven that each individual human life around you had its unique, individual beginning at conception. Cloning for reproduction is problematic, and so is in vitro fertilization when one considers the 'discard' factor of individaul human lives conceived but not even given a chance at life support. Therapeutic cloning is cannibalism on the earliest age of individual human lives.

[tortoise]

The problem is that too many people take concepts that are neutral, latch on to them, and then drag them off on some metaphysical tangent. This is inappropriate and irrational in any legitimate discourse of the subject.

Human tissue cloning (in whatever form) does not get a "pass" in the consistency requirement department, but VERY few people are making entirely consistent arguments that accept the full consequences of their positions. "Human life" is not some abstract ungrounded concept, it is a concrete and well-grounded bit of biology and people unwilling to make an argument from this basis can offer no value to the discussion.

Incidentally, human life has a very finite and variable value -- people don't set prices, markets do. This much should be bloody obvious upon casual evaluation, both pragmatically and theoretically. A lot of people claim otherwise, but it is patently clear by observation that no one actually lives as though they believe that human life is infinitely valuable. Nothing useful will ever come of this discussion until people start grounding the discussion in facts rather than metaphysical tangents and ideals.

There are two choices here. People can either assert that human life has infinite value and accept the fact that their entire life is a gross contradiction to this (which would make any weight they put on this issue hypocritical in the extreme). Or they can assert that human life has a very finite value (which at least is externally consistent) and deal with the consequences from that basis. Nobody gets their cake and to eat it too; rationality doesn't care one whit for grandstanding.

[realpatriot71]

what is it in you, exactly, that knows this?

The brain. What do you use to know you're alive?

[realpatriot71]

These children being operated on are not self aware yet.

I disagree.

Are they expendable under your sentience is the true descriptive factor of being a human being.

No. I do not support abortion, and will never perform one.

[RJCogburn]

HorseHillary!

HorseHillary....that's terrific!

[realpatriot71]

My question to you both is simple: President Reagan is no longer sentient, he lacks the quality of being human that you use for your arguments.

I disagree. Reagan's dz may have caused him problems with cognition, memory, etc., but the President does know he's alive, feels pain, experiences emotion. When alzheimer's becomes so severe that the President does not know he's alive anymore, he'll die, naturally.

What would you do with our great Gipper?

Give him the best end of life care as possible

he refuted your position directly

With all due respect to the President, my positions on this issue are not dictated by what Reagan thought.

[unspun]

My brain is a set of electrical circuits and supporting material.

What about people who leave their bodies after their brainwaves stop, and see themselves and those around them, then come back into their bodies later. What is it in them that tells them throughout the whole time, of their existence?

If you loose a part of your brain, by an accident or operation, does that make you less of a person?

[wharfrat]

The only acceptable future continuance of your mortal body past death is faith and salvation; that guarantees a future existence. Remember you are bought with a price with, the vicarious death of The lord Jesus Christ guarantees it for you. Jehovah God created you, owns you, and will outfit you with a perfect incorruptable body. Man and all his vain finite abilities robs Jehovah God of his Glory and can only produce an inferrior product, with no guarantee. Oh! and it does not require regular maintenance to keep it up! He does quality work and its free to those of Faith!

[realpatriot71]

What about people who leave their bodies after their brainwaves stop, and see themselves and those around them, then come back into their bodies later. What is it in them that tells them throughout the whole time, of their existence?

This doesn't happen when "brain waves stop," because it is a hallucination. I don't put much stock in hallucinations.

If you loose a part of your brain, by an accident or operation, does that make you less of a person?

No