I watched a little of a CNN interview by Connie Chung this afternoon (I wasn’t at home and had to leave before it was finished) of an American couple who intend to go to an “undisclosed country” where there is no legal impediment, there to clone the wife. I would have included the transcript here, but it is incomplete at this hour. Perhaps tomorrow the whole thing will be available.
This couple apparently have tried to conceive a child for years without success. They have decided to clone the wife, using an egg from a younger donor, into which the wife’s DNA will be injected. The result (if it works) will be a genetically identical copy of the wife, with no genetic material of her husband involved.
My own view presently is that human cloning is a bad idea, at least at this time, because there is still too little known about the risks to the cloned child. I also think that, given the number of existing children who need parents, adoption should be the first choice. As an agnostic, I take no position on whether human cloning is somehow usurping a deity’s place, but the woman in the interview said she thinks it’s what God wants, whatever that may mean.
This has probably been discussed in this forum before, but only from the theoretical perspective. Now there are people who plan to have brought a human clone into the world by next year. What are your opinions about cloning of humans in general? Why is this a good idea or why not?
It’s not about the cloning. It’s about the status of the clones in society. If they are raised as all the other children, I don’t see any problem. If they are used as spare parts…
Let’s assume for the moment that the spare parts idea is just something for a bad sci-fi movie. This couple plans to bring up their cloned baby girl as normally as possible. I can’t help wondering, however, what the effect on the child herself will be when she learns that she is a historical “first,” and, more importantly, how she will be regarded by other children (and adults) as she grows up. Even if her parents stay together she will lack a biological connection to her father, and will be an exact reproduction (at least physically) of her mother. How will that knowledge affect her emotionally?
I don’t see any problem with cloning. Every arguement I hear against it could have been made in the 1970’s against IVF. I haven’t heard of IVF babies (who are now older than me) being affected emotionally by this knowledge.
I chalk the whole thing up to peoples natural resistance to any change. It’s different, so it must be evil, right? Wrong.
Perhaps a less cursory examination of the article would reveal that it has links to much of the original source material. Well, no, actually there is no “perhaps,” it would. Feel free to click those links.
Yes, I picked Morons.org as a joke. Sorry. Feel free to do your own search using “headless human clones,” this should uncover many of the same articles easily linked by going to the source I already provided.
It’s my understanding that other recent mammalian cloning efforts have not been as successful as initially believed. Dolly the Sheep, for example, may be experiencing premature aging, and appears to suffer from arthritis; cloned mice have died much earlier than their non-cloned counterparts. There is still genuine concern in the scientific community about clones being “born old,” as it were. Maybe those objections have been addressed recently, though; I really don’t know.
But if that’s the case, that raises some ethical questions about subjecting a human being to cloning. I have no particular philosophical objection to reproductive human cloning, but if it might be condemning a child to early aging and medical complications, when that could be avoided, seems wrong.
I’d rather see the technology advance to the point where those concerns could be anticipated and corrected before people start engaging in widespread cloning. As to this particular couple, it’s their choice, but I hope they’re prepared for the potential problems.
I’m not opposed to cloning per se. It’s just another assisted conception technology, a variation on the standard in-vitro fertilization method and neither sinister nor immoral in itself. However, the technology is clearly not ready for prime time. Decades of research will be required to make the procedure a safe and effective alternative to existing reproduction technologies, and we’re simply not there yet.
Having read the story mentioned in the OP, Couple plan to clone a baby, I feel quite badly for the couple in question because they’re obviously naive and delusional. This remark they made to the extent that adopted children are damaged goods and therefore cloning is preferable despite the ghastly level of associated risk – one would think this would exclude them from consideration for the procedure on psychiatric grounds alone.
Quite frankly, nobody with the lack of regard for human life demonstrated by this couple should ever be allowed to reproduce.
It may SHOCK you to hear this, but I DID read the linked article, including the link to the bbc news article, and gave it due consideration, or I would not have passed comment upon the said article. Amazing to hear, I know!
I actually saw a televised program, probably about the same experiment… the monkey head opened its eyes and looked around… one of the most gruesome things I’ve ever seen. I can see no reason for the experiment, except to see if it were possible.
If the child is to be bought up as normally as possible I see no problem with it… but I do think long-term health risks should be investigated more fully before it is done.
Oh, heck no…people should be free to have as many children as they choose. The thing that bugs me about cloning as that it’s undignified to whatever child results. Can you imagine being raised in a household where mom refers to you as “my clone”? That’s gotta cause severe identity problems. Plus, what happens when the clone-child decides not to follow in a parent’s footsteps? Like, a famous athlete has a clone who decides he wants to be a puppeteer when he grows up. Family chaos ensues.
Seriously, my understanding of parenthood is that parents exist for their child’s well-being, not the other way around. (Re: people who have babies but treat them like a Christmas puppy. Sooner or later, the charm wears off.) I worry about children being treated as their parents’ expectation, rather than as little persons with their own needs. Cloning, I fear, would largely be the same route: “Ooooh, wouldn’t it be great if there were a little me running around?” Except, of course, the child wouldn’t be a little you, but a distinct person who just happens to share your genetic structure.
Technically the parents in a traditional sense are the mother and father of the clonee. It is like having a sister or brother, you. You are a different age than you also. The birth mother could have no genetic link to the clone at all. Of course, this is possible now in other some other areas like artificial insemination, implantation, whatever. The law is not quite ready for clones. head hurting
Sephic Basically, you are right about the site. I just did not need another ‘crappy link’ post. I was merely trying to flesh out what Gozu said first, the humor attracted me.
Note: I have yet to take a position on the OP. Still processing.
I think “the thing speaks for itself,” or ResIpsaLoquitur, has a point about the potentially bizarre nature of the not-parent not-child relationship. Of course, I would never speak for anyone called ResIpsaLoquitur.
I worry about the genetic degradation that some scientists claim goes along with cloning. I think there are a lot more birth defects than the norm in the subject test animals that have been cloned. Something about the ‘life’ of DNA (which itself is non-living, I guess). I know some scientists have raised concerns similar to if not exactly like what I just stated.
Actually it’s an egg cell from an unnamed donor.
It’s not that simple. Suppose they wanted to do something far less innocous like cross their baby with their favorite pet. Would they have a right to do that? Ownership is not the only determining factor.
Cloning is still very new, moral concerns aside, the health risks are unknown. They are creating a walking, talking, human science experiment with feelings.
I’m not opposed to cloning in principle, but we’re just not ready for it yet.
I don’t think we will ever be ready until someone goes ahead and does it. Nothing is 100% safe the first time, but after a while it will become the norm. Poeple won’t give it any more thought to cloning than they do to IVF after the 1,000th clone is born.
How about this scenario I saw on some TV show* last night: a couple had a child who was profoundly mentally and physically disabled due to a problem in the delivery (the child was perfectly normal before that), forceps or some such. He was not expected to live past 10 years old. He had the mental capacity of a baby and could not control any of his muscles. The parents wanted to, I think after the boy died, but maybe not, clone the boy so that they could have the child this boy would have been if not for the accident in delivery.
At first I thought, much like robertliguori, what the hey, it’s their egg and child, who am I to say what someone should or shouldn’t do? But the more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I was with it. This couple already had 2 normal children. Something just seems selfish about the reasons given by this couple and the couple in the OP; they are thinking of themselves, not the lives they plan to bring into the world.
*I think it was TLC, The Making of a Human Being or something like that. They also got into the embryonic stem cell issue, which was interesting.
I have the right to express an opinion; you have the right to disagree. But I suspect that’s beside your point.
Society has the right to determine who can have children and who can’t the moment it’s placed in the position of providing them for people. An adoption agency, for example, routinely estimates the fitness of its applicants and will reject anyone it considers to be poor, uneducated, mentally ill, etc., criteria that would never be imposed on other couples, however unsuitable, who were capable of conceiving children by themselves.