Just because something is done often, doesn’t automatically make it right. Consider that IVF and abortion are common procedures that are controversial nonetheless.
We can argue all day about the merits and demerits of these procedures, but the frequency of their occurrance doesn’t enter into it, in my opinion.
Should the morality of slavery not have been debated just because it was commonplace?
Do you really think cloning is as sophisticated and well tested as IVF was when it was introduced to medical practice?
AFAIK we have no reason to think an IVF baby is any different from a normal one. It’s happens essentially the same way that all babies are concieved only in a different environment for a short period of time. A clone is very different from an IVF baby or any other human being ever for that matter.
I think god has already spoken on that issue 
I doubt it is as well tested in mammals as IVF was (i could be mistaken). Cloning is relatively unsuccessful, it takes around 100 tries to get a mammal clone to come to term, and then most of them have birth defects…Link
This link claims EVERY clone is genetically defective. these “parents” (and i use parents in quotes instead of mother #%^ing slime *^%# @!#$ers, which is what they really are) are about to grow their own monster, which will die horribly, then they will sue the people who set up the cloning process. Cloning people is a bad idea, let us scientists figure out how to do it right in mice and goats before we start playing God with real people.
I know a little bit about cloning because of a Biology class I took last year. Here’s what I know about the scientific side:
Lord Ashtar - taking DNA from both parents and then combining it is as yet impossible. The only way to artificially create a human being with both parents’ DNA is through IVF.
The results of cloning experiments in the labs with smaller mammals have been disheartening, to say the least. I recall hearing in class that scientists took one mouse, 500 surrogate mouse eggs, and attempted to make 500 clones of just that one mouse. Only 5 even made it to birth. The first 495 never survived the pregnancy. Of the lucky five that made it to birth, only one survived mouse infancy. It died quickly after attaining maturity, and had far more medical problems than its genetic donor.
For some reason, cloning has bio-chemical effects that scientists just can’t explain. As pldennison reminds us, Dolly is experiencing premature aging and arthritis, two problems that her genetic donor had not yet encountered at that age.
On a purely unscientific level, I think “Kathy and Bill” need to seriously reconsider what they are about to do. Love of a child is supposed to be unconditional. Here’s what they say about their plans for their child, should the baby be a monster.
They don’t want to deal with an “abnormal child”? Then don’t clone. At this point in time, cloning a human being virtually guarantees that their child will have severe problems, even if you completely disregard the emotional baggage that the child would have to deal with as the mother’s clone.
Which brings me to the psychological ramifications of this: how are they going to discipline this kid? Can the woman really say no to what is essentially a smaller version of herself? Can her husband be a good father to this girl, knowing that he’s been having sex with the older version for years? Cloning just brings in a completely new dynamic that sickens me.
This also makes me wonder about the future of this child, should anything ever happen to the mother.
Apparently, these fertility drugs that she took increased her likelihood for getting cancer. What if the day comes when she does get cancer? Since she has a replica just sitting around her house, won’t this make her far more likely to expect her “daughter” to supply her with whatever organs she might happen to need (bone marrow or whatnot)?
I think cloning could be a great thing, once all the bugs are worked out of it. But I wouldn’t want entire human beings to be cloned. We as a people are not equipped to deal with it. I think the best cloning would be the cloning of just a liver or a heart - not an entire person, just a specific organ that might save a life.
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I don’t think nearly as many people are against IVF today as there were before the first time it had been done. Admitedly, I don’t have figures on it, and wasn’t alive at the time. But, I have never heard someone speak against IVF. People who cannot produce on thier own routinely go to doctors for help and I didn’t think anybody thought twice about it. Of course, religious fundamental types are not going to like it, but, I mean the majority of the American public.
Right now, the majority of people I would guess are against cloning. It certainly seems that way. Now, if cloning were legal for 100 years without a single bad incident occuring I am sure that some religious and other folk would still be against it. But, after being practiced for a while I feel that most people would stop being opposed to it. Like I said, most people are just afraid of something different.
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I don’t know. Do you really think it makes a bit of difference to most people who are against cloning? No matter how sophisticated and well tested cloning is I am of the opinion that most people would still be opposed to it.
How is a cloned baby “very different” from an IVF baby any more than an IVF baby is “very different” from a naturally produced baby? If the process works, at the end of a day you have a little baby. Until you tell someone that this baby is a clone, it is no different from “any other human being ever”. No one would ever know the difference.
I am opposed to it because we cannot safely clone animals, so we have no right to play games with actual people. Once that hurdle is solved, we can go ahead and go after cloned people, but to do so before hand is dangerous. Part of the public’s perception of cloning is clouded with common misperceptions, such as a clone will be the same age of and have the same memories of the donor (could i be replaced with a clone???), or thoughts of organ harvesting from headless bodies (not gonna happen, pig farms that grow people organs is more likely).
What’s wrong with harvesting organs from headless bodies? Sounds pretty cool to me. It’s a little sci-fi creepy, but anything that will prolong my life is ok in my book. I bow once more unto my survival instincts. C’mon, Tars, you know this is my favorite aspect of the cloning possibilities, I’ve blathered on and on about it ever since reading Time Enough for Love, probably had a mini-rant about it in your presence every time some anti-cloning group gets any press time. I want to harvest organs from my brain-dead clone!!!
BTW, did the “pig farm” remark actually represent a valid scientific idea or was it one of those “yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt” sort of remarks?
I don’t buy Bill and Kathy’s story anyway. It just doesn’t add up.
IVF and cloning are substantially similar in principle, except that the method of fertilization is different. If the couple is so desperate to multiply that they’ve found a donor and surrogate for the procedure, why not just fertilize the egg with Bill’s sperm and be done with it?
Cloning a primate is less likely to result in a mini-me than in an undifferentiated blob of goop. Assuming Bill and Kathy are debased enough to be comfortable with that, I doubt there is a surrogate in the world who would give her informed consent to the experiment.
This Dr. Zavos guy seems to be the quintessential publicity whore, and the fact that the interview appeared on Connie Chung rather than, say, this week’s issue of Nature speaks volumes about which audience they intended to impress.
Actually, RexDart, the “pig farm” thing is already happening.
For several years now, genetically altered pigs have been raised en masse by researchers to be born with human heart valves, or to secrete human insulin from their pancreases. I’m fairly certain that they are also being bred for other things as well.
And yes, once the heart valves are harvested, the pig dies. 
I’m not sure about the human insulin part. I think those pigs are sick (since they aren’t used to the foreign insulin), but are kept alive so that they can keep producing what the researchers want.
In a side note, researchers are now investigating the altering of certain viruses so that they can be used to produce human bio-chemicals as well.
The populace will be opposed to the idea of headless body farms in such a way that they will never become a reality. Pig farms are a much easier to accept reality, and you can enjoy pork chops while Babe’s heart beats in your breast! Or more likely pigs that are not killed when the organs are removed are “retired” to pasture, or petting zoos. Pig farms will also buy us time until we can clone organs in a box for specific people, we can keep pigs with universal organs that fit people for the time it takes to grow complete organs, and we can harvest eyes from the pigs, something we can’t do with headless humans without getting into a “how much of the brainstem is a person” arguments.
There is also alterations being made to goats so that their milk will produce antibiotics, IIRC. So soon Old MacDonald had a farm will take on a whole new meaning.
Geez, that sounds alot worse than the headless human body method. At least the headless human body isn’t really alive in any experiential way. I love a good pork steak, I have no problem with outright killing the pig, but I’d rather avoid keeping a pig in a perpetual state of illness. I suppose though that it’s certainly better than the human diabetics living in perpetual illness. Anyway, I think this has strengthened my resolve about headless human bodies.
Thanks for the 411 SUPERKARLENE, I don’t keep up with this medical science stuff anymore, I usually just get all my information talking to Tars Tarkas, who does keep up with it.
I respect your position on this Tars. Actually, if I studied this issue a little more I may agree with you. I perhaps naively assumed that cloning had been going on long enough with animals that the time is right for humans. I would certainly be in favor of waiting if there is more to be learned on sheep before moving on to humans.
I still mantain the position, however, that many or most people will continue to be against cloning regardless of how safe it becomes to try. The only way to change the opinions of the masses is to go ahead with doing it. Only then will people become convined of it’s feasibility.
While noting the smiley, and with the disclaimer that I am not myself a believer, I do think that there may be a reason why this particular couple are childless. It may as well be God as not. Even though “Kathy” says she thinks it’s what God wants her to do, just maybe they aren’t supposed to have children. Their willingness to take the risk of a child that will die young, and their stated intention to abort any foetus that is “defective,” added to their stated reason for rejecting the idea of adoption (damaged goods, as it were) all say to me that these are selfish people who shouldn’t have the care of anyone’s children.
A good point, KoalaBear, and it may help to answer Sephic’s question as well. But this from you: “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.” answers it even better. It is clear to me that this couple shouldn’t be cloning a person, even if the process itself can be justified scientifically, medically and ethically. Some good arguments to each of those concerns have already been advanced in this thread. You’ve all given me a lot of food for thought. Since I’m somthing of a glutton, more such food would still be welcome. 
You and me both, right down the line, including ** Time Enough for Love - ** download me right into a brand-spankin’ new version of my body, sans fat. Over and over again. Forever. Works for me. (But it really works best if the people I love get the same treatment.)
I read a cnn transcript of the interview with Michael Guillen,( http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/08/13/cloned.birth.cnna/index.html) and basically they shrug off the question of adoption by saying that there’s “nothing wrong with wanting your own child, right?” which got me to thinking…
What relation to the parents will this hypothetical child be? I know we can cross out Dad, so let’s talk about Mom…IICR from anatomy and biology courses, we already have “natural” clones-Identical twins, who share the same DNA. How would this child be different from that? It just seems to me that on a biological level a clone isn’t “your own child” so much as your identical sibling (since you would both have DNA inherited from the adult’s parents).
Were this the case, would the person who was being cloned parents’ have any say in whether or not the person was allowed to be cloned? Somehow I can see there being lawsuits arising in which the “grandparents” become finically liable for child support solely because the kid has there DNA, much like deadbeat dads are for the same reason.
Yipes. I guess a DNA test would show the “grandparents” as “parents”, if I understand this all correctly. Still, the procedure would surely be heavily documented, and I’d think the law would have to adapt and allow evidence of that to counter the positive DNA test for parentage.
Anyway, we better hush up about that before some activist group gets ahold of it and decides holding the grandparents responsible for child support is in “the best interests of the child” – the nuclear bomb of family law. In the wrong hands, your mind is dangerous to us all elfkin477
Right on, brother! DesertGeeze, I was thinking exactly that when I read the CNN article. 
Which makes me wonder - if adoptive parents are carefully screened by adoption agencies, are would-be parents who go to IVF clinics screened as well? Or is it all about whether or not they can pay for the procedures (which can be tens of thousands just for one series of implantations)?
CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ALERT
Even though I don’t think that’s the case, I would really be in favor of screening parents who would clone themselves to get a child. IVF has been proved to be safe (not to mention that it’s really just allowing nature to happen in a somewhat controlled environment outside the womb) - cloning hasn’t, and a couple would have to have the necessary emotional stability to deal with a child that not only looked like one of them, but had medical problems as well.
SUPERKARLENE
Sorry, DesertGeezer! My copy+paste must have been off…
Don’t mean to be a nag, but can you give a cite on this “defective” comment. I don’t remember that from the article. Did they say it in some other interview?
What’s wrong with thier rejection of adoption? I can understand if you disagree with them but I don’t see how it makes them selfish.
And your conclusion that this means they shouldn’t have the care of anyone’s children is complete rubbish. Let me phrase it another way:
You feel that anyone who would abort a “defective” fetus,
and who doesn’t like the idea of adopting a foreign child,
doesn’t deserve to have the care of anyone’s children?
I meet these criteria, and so do a lot of other people that I don’t think fall into the category of selfish at all. Get off your high horse. Just because someone has a different opinion on these issues than you do, doesn’t mean they are unfit parents.
First off: Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. Just because we shouldn’t do something doesn’t mean that we have the right to stop others from doing it.
Mind you, cloning a person just because it’s neat is fantastically stupid. Whether it’s making a heart, a plague, or a baby, nature usually does it better.
Factoid: I saw a video a while ago on children who aged at about 10x the normal rate, and who died off before their teens.
The video stated that there were “caps” of nucleotides on DNA, and when DNA reproduced in cell division, the DNA cap wore down. These children had faulty DNA caps, which wore down at an accellerated rate, causing them to look 80 by the time they were 8. IIRC, this could be why Dolly is older than she should be.