Why are people upset about cloning?

Great Debates
21

I suspect the cloning debate goes a lot deeper than most of what has been discussed.

The religious right is concerned that if a whole person is cloned, in the true sense of the word, then a direct copy will be produced artificially and will that copy have a soul? True cloning is making a being outside of the womb from cell scrapings, not taking a viable egg and implanting genetic material, then replanting it in the womb.

Also, we evolve steadily through mutations caused by the radiation of our sun. Even now, several new species of animals thought to be recent mutations have been discovered in the world. Cloning humans basically stops the evolutionary process for that human. If that clone has off spring naturally, the evolutionary process will continue but will have been delayed. Clone too many people and you delay evolution.

Evolution is a good thing because it enriches the species through environmental adaptation. Like, it is known evolution made us different colors to adapt to our home environments. Now, since we are more mobile, it is speculated that through interbreeding, eventually we will ‘homogenize’ into one color. Evolution gave the Black man high resistance to skin cancer and the White man high resistance to cold.

Clone animals and you might be both benefiting mankind and hurting it at the same time because you’ll be keeping any genetic disorders intact that might have phased out over time.

Pure cloning, which is not what we have today, would enable organs to be grown for transplant in tissue cultures from a cell sample of the donor.

Actually, the processes being used today are but the very first steps towards real cloning.

Besides, we have a problem with cloning food animals. Several problems in fact. The first is stopping the long term evolution of a breed and, through cloning, keep inherited diseases intact that might have been bred out. A grand example is many pure bred animals have nasty inherited diseases that are kept because of the tight inbreeding.

The second is commercial. So, we breed a low fat, more nutritious cow, and clone it. The costs for a hardy breed drop, meet is more plentiful. Well, the breeders will loose out because the end sellers will maximize profits by increasing or maintaining the price. Even today, we have enough beef to make the price at the store cheaper, but the middlemen and retailers know we will pay high prices for it and do not drop them. So, creating better, cheaper food animals will not do much to make food cheaper.

We see that now with genetically engineered vegetables. Designed to stay fresher longer, to resist diseases that ruins them in the field, to be more nourishing and easier to grow, they cost more at the cash register.

So, there are a whole range of problems involved.

Last but not least is the Chinese Problem. China has strict birth laws. One child per family unless you can afford a wavier to have another. The male child his more highly valued than the female. Female children are being aborted faster than males so now, the Chinese have a lopsided male to female ratio which is causing problems.

Suppose you have a choice of what type of child to birth? Nature balances out the sexes just fine and mixes the genetic pool thoroughly. So people decide they want more boys than girls, with higher intelligence, blue eyes, and the natural build of a football player and, suddenly, we have several hundred thousand of the guys floating around and a shortage of natural selection. That screws up evolution. It could screw up the division of the sexes.

Now, if cloning reaches the level skillful enough to wipe out selective imperfections per-birth, that is different. It is also genetic manipulation. Your family has a history of cancer, heart disease, senility at 40 and allergies. So, your doctor manipulates the genetics of sperm and egg to remove all of these traits, clones the new eggs, implants what you need and stores the rest. Your children come out better than you are, without all of the inherited problems. Good?

Well, probably, but right now we have several sections of society not happy about such possibilities.

Like, Dwarfs. They’re not real happy about knowing that, soon, their whole line could be ‘corrected’ and wiped out.

The deaf seem to have problems with this also, because many resist hearing implants, having developed a whole deaf culture. Many are not happy about the possibility that cloning could wipe out deaf culture.

How about homosexuality? Genetic manipulation and cloning could wipe them out by making their descendants ‘normal’ and the wild card genetics which produces them in the first place could be eliminated.

Then comes the possibility of ‘superbeings’. People cloned and genetically altered to be better soldiers, more resistant to pain and injury, able to put on more muscle mass, to have stronger bones, more durable, stronger, faster, better than the normal mix we have today. That opens up a nasty nest of speculative problems.

You just KNOW the big money sports industry will get into the mix, breeding future football stars, preferably with monster bodies, low intelligence, keen agility and natural aggressiveness.

There is no way we can keep cloning from being abused at this time.

Plus, would a true clone be considered a free person and have all of the rights we have? Suppose we clone 27 identical Albert Einstein’s? Would they be free people or slaves of the state?

There are a lot of things to consider and science fiction writers, thankfully, have already brought up potential problems through the years that most of us would not have thought of, in relation to cloning.

22

I don’t believe in “souls”, but if people have them, I can’t see why clones wouldn’t have them too. I would guess that humans have already largely taken control of their own evolutionary destinies, so I’m not too concerned with the “clones won’t have enough mutations” argument. (Not to mention that cloning would presumably also be subject to random errors, just like regular reproduction–too many errors in fact, according to recent reports, which is the only reason I can see for at least a temporary moratorium on human cloning.) As for the idea that cloning will destroy our genetic diversity–I’m not really too worried about this. People still seem pretty enthusiastic about making babies the old-fashioned way; I doubt if cloning will supplant that any time soon. Even if test tubes or “uterine replicators” supplant women having birth the hard way, I’d be willing to bet most couples will still want to combine their DNA and have a baby that’s our baby, not just a clone of him or her.

Many of the “superbeing”–super-soldier, super-athlete, super-scientist–scenarios can be prevented if we all just keep in mind that clones are human beings. There’s no reason whatsoever to view them as slaves or as having any fewer rights than anyone else. Therefore, your clone of Michael Jordan can go play for the other team, if he feels like it. Or become a baseball player. You don’t own him. (And, clones aren’t just human beings, they’re babies, which introduces major logistical problems to any would be Mad Scientists bent on World Conquest with their Clone Army.)

23

Now, I hate jocks as much as he next guy, but I don’t think intelligence (its lack) is something beneficial to sports. It is an interesting hypothesis though, and would answer a lot of questions. :stuck_out_tongue:

24

Another factor is money. Only rich people will afford the cloning process. And as they make more of themselves this way, and install the clones to high places, what will become of us non-cloners?

25

Hopefully this isn’t a hijack or too vague but… assuming that we are able to perfect human cloning, what is to stop anyone who understands the technology from using it for their own purposes? Would we clone another Einstien? Mother Theresa? Hitler? Or would it come down to cloning only being available to those who can afford it? IMO, I see great potential in human cloning, but am unable to see it ethically regulated when human nature itself is so disordered.

26

First off, is the complaint against genetic engineering or cloning? Let’s not conflate the two. Cloning simply creates a normal human baby who happens to be the identical twin of an already existing human. No genetic manipulation whatsoever. The “genetically engineered superman” objection fails.

Also, let’s not conflate animal cloning with human cloning. Animal cloning will not perpetuate genetic disorders, since the animals chosen for clonal propagation will be free of those genetic disorders. The genetic disease argument fails.

Look, my sisters are CLONES. Yes, they are naturally occuring clones. I don’t know if they have individual souls or not, but I bet every person who believes in the existance of souls believes that my sisters have two individual souls, not one. My sister Teresa didn’t come out as a soul-less monster because she is the genetic duplicate of my sister Kathleen. No, both are normal humans. The “soul-less monster” objection fails.

Cloning does NOT slow down evolution. Evolution has no direction, it has no plan. We are seriously changing the trajectory of our evolution by living in crowded industrial cities rather than in nomadic hunter-gatherer bands. The “lack of evolution” objection fails.

What if rich people create armies of clones? Well, um, these would be babies. Can you imagine the expense of raising these babies? Wouldn’t it be cheaper and easier to externalize those costs and simply recruit already adult humans and brainwash them? That’s what governments all over the world do. Besides, clones are human babies. Anything it would be unethical to do to a sexually created human baby would be unethical to do to a clonally created human baby. So, it would be against the law to create a clone army of slaves, just like it is against the law to create a normal army of slaves. The “clone army” objection fails.

If cloning becomes possible, then people may choose to have more children of one sex than of the other. But they can already do this with in vitro fertillization techniques. Cloning is therefore no more problematic than already existing non-controversial test-tube babies. If it creates a gender imbalance, then there will be a corresponding increase in the power of the minority sex…and therefore an increase in their status. And therefore, within a generation, more people will chose to have babies of the minority sex. But this is still not a problem with cloning, since the exact same effect could be acheived without cloning, and in fact, ALREADY IS. Abortion and infanticide have already created gender imbalances in some parts of the third world. So, the “gender imbalance” objection fails.

If dwarfs, or homosexuals, or deaf people want to clone themselves, then they should have exactly the same consideration that other people have…especially since they can already create children the normal way. Cloning would not eliminate those people, although genetic engineering might. But cloning is not genetic engineering. So the “no more genetic minorities” objection fails.

Yes, science fiction writers have invented all sorts of fictional societies where cloning is abusive and problematic. All those problems vanish in an instant if we simply realize that cloning creates a human baby with all the rights and protections of other human babies. It does not create a piece of property or a slave. The thirteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States prohibits involuntary servitude, so no clones can be enslaved, just like African-Americans cannot be enslaved. Yes, you can imagine a society where clones are enslaved. But that would not be our society, or any other western country. If clones are enslaved, the problem is not cloning, but the society that allows other human beings to be enslaved. So, the “slavery” objection fails.

Or suppose only rich people can clone themselves. I imagine that cloning will always be a bit more expensive than the typical in vitro fertillization is…but not much more. The only difference is the nuclear transfer, and there is no reason for that to add very much to the cost. Middle class people even today can afford in vitro fertillization, although it isn’t cheap. The poor won’t be able to clone themselves, but the middle class will. If the middle class can afford in vitro fertillization they can afford cloning. So, the “only the rich” objection fails.

Besides, how is the idea of the rich giving favors to their clone offspring any different than the present situation where rich people give favors to their sexually created offspring? A clone is not a duplicate of a person, it is not a copy of a person, it is a brand new person. So the rich won’t be able to duplicate themselves, only create babies in a new way. This is not exactly threatening. Sure, some vain and annoying people will raise cloned babies for selfish reasons. The same people are today able to raise sexually created babies for selfish reasons…see Madonna’s pregnancies, etc, etc. As long as the person is not an unfit parent there is no compelling state interest that would allow us to take the baby away from them. If they are abusing the child, then our already existing laws against child abuse will protect or not protect the child. But no special laws need to be created to protect cloned children, they are protected by the same laws as every other child. So, the “favors” and “cloning is abusive” objections fail.

I’m still waiting to hear something compelling. So far, the only thing that makes sense is that cloning techniques are not perfected and could be dangerous. Once the techniques are perfected cloning presents no ethical problems.

Anybody got anything better than this? I’m ready!

27

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, history has taught us never to rely people for compassion, understanding, ethics or considering the good of the general population. Those in power and who have been in power have proven beyond a doubt that power is both self serving and corruptive. The role call reads like a list of who’s who. Joe Kennedy, Rockefeller, rail road owners, LBJ, Gotti (SP), Hurst, JC Penny, the original owners of every major oil company, Henry Ford, Edison, the original owners of every major car company, and so on.

Cloning is in it’s initial stages, but within short order, I expect the uncertainties will be ironed out once genetics and gene splicing get further understood. After all, we sent men to the moon in crates that were basically jalopies in comparison to the new shuttles.

I have absolutely no problem in believing the major sports industry would start encouraging big, strong, not too smart players to be ‘built.’ Smart is a liability because it costs money. Smart enough to follow orders, graduate high school and handle an unusually high athletic ability is most desired. Not all that long back, I recall colleges encouraging grade alterations on stupid players with remarkable skills so they could play. In the 60s and 70s, there were a whole lot of big, dumb and mean professional sports players.

Now, they’re big, mean and smart enough to hire agents and lawyers and get big bucks and make you sports saps pay three times the normal ticket price and buy $6.00 crappy hot-dogs and $5.00 beers.

Corporations have no problem with slave labor. Look at the states around Mexico today. Several years ago a major, major crackdown on Illegals was proposed, and the farmers and business owners rose up in outrage. They make major money off of Illegals. Americans will not pick beans in the hot sun for $4.00 an hour, live in rotten barracks, eat cheap, crappy food, get charged double for purchases from the company store, nor work in dangerous conditions without safety gear.

Plus, if an illegal complains, well, you call immigration and they all get shipped back prior to pay day, you pocket their pay, you’ve sent them a message and the next time they return, they’re more ‘agreeable.’ In the 70s there were horror stories about the major Florida sugar cane fields, which boomed after we stopped buying Cuban sugar. People worked there under inhumane conditions and were treated virtually as slaves, including being trucked to camps 20 or 30 miles out into the swamps to isolate them from the general population.

Big business will gladly hire a being not considered a real human, and will push to get such beings to be designated semi-slaves in order to have a cheap labor force. Most major companies would be happy to have slave labor fed cheaply by the company, paid off in cheap housing, cheap medical care and provided only the basics in exchange for salaried employees, with civil rights, unions, medical benefits, lawyers, labor laws and minimum wage.

How many basic labor jobs require a high IQ? Ever taken a good look at your average city and county basic labor force? You know, the ones who dig the ditches, clean the sewers, lean on shovels by road construction, and haul garbage. How much intelligence does it take to empty tractor trailers of stock? Clean buildings? Do lawns? You don’t need to be smart to pick fruit and vegetables, haul in meat for butchers, or do a lot of the repeat actions on an assembly line for cars.

So, limited intelligence in clones, designated as not exactly real humans, could be encouraged by businesses through a bunch of back door deals with politicians.

Look how long comprehensive labor laws were fought before they were enacted. Look at all of the scams businesses use now to cheat employees and customers out of money.

You think the nation would not stand for such atrocities? Think again. Look how long it took women to get the vote, to get equal rights, for Blacks to get the same and to bring an end to segregation. Take a real good look at some of the complex laws enacted to protect businesses. Remember when hostile takeovers were not done daily? If a man did not want to sell his business, he kept it, but not anymore.

Currently, the nursing home business is a money maker, but the appalling treatment of many clients has gotten people pissed and they sue. There is a bill in congress, sponsored by a coalition of nursing home owners to make it almost impossible for them to be sued.

Remember when interest gouging was against the law? Mobsters used to charge 20% interest on loans, with complex ways to compound it through penalties. Ever examined your charge card? 21% interest, with different interest for cash advances, late fees, monthly compounded interest verses yearly interest, hidden charges, and penalties.

That used to be racketeering, but it’s legal now.

True clones can be decided by a major church, probably the Catholic one and probably the Jewish and Islamic religions, to be without souls because of unnatural out of the womb birth from unnatural, out of the womb conception, if conception is even used. True cloning does not require sperm and egg. From there, you get pressures put on the politicians and general public – like the no smoking psychological ads, the cunning beer ads, the milk ‘deals’ with congress (the actual dairy farmers make jack shit, but the milk processor and distributor makes the bucks), the psychic hot line ads, slanted news reports, and the public will probably agree. The laws will be passed.

By then, the world will probably be ripe for some being to discriminate against anyhow.

Look at the porn industry. How would you like to be able to have hot sex with a beautiful man or woman, designed to be immune to all STDs, not real bright, intent on serving you, for a fee? You just know the pedophiles will push for kid clones, who, as second class citizens, could work in the porn industry.

Carry it all further. Humans, given half a chance, will enslave other humans, in one way or another. Even today, in many nations, slavery from it’s rawest to it’s most sophisticated forms in being practiced. (Taiwan comes to mind, along with Vietnam. Even the States, Africa, the UK, and the Middle East. All nations have a form of slavery going on. It’s just not called slavery. It’s called sweat shop employment.)

Give people to legally own slaves, have the various religions approve them, as has been done before, and clones would sell fast. If the science for genetics and cloning is there, then so is the ability to adjust the clone’s mentality and attitude before birth. No more slave revolts. No more smart, sneaky slaves learning to read and spreading it to the others. No more creepy religions being formed by slaves and a built in desire to serve!!

Major commodities there! Without all of the nastiness of the old slave trade. Slave clones could be treated with all of the laws governing pets today.

You see the ramifications. If it can be corrupted, it will be. Humans have a huge capacity to be selfish and greedy.

Look at the medical drug market today. Enormous profits at the cost of human lives. No regulation yet in effect to stop this because the major drug companies are pouring millions into congress.

So, there is a major amount of things to consider before developing true, sentient clones. Cloning body parts would be much more acceptable, even cloning ‘blank’ brain tissue to replace brain damage would be good.

In my own personal career, I learned that most major corporations care little for the average person, or even their loyal workers (see all of the layoffs in the last 20 years) and care more for profit which mainly goes to the owners. True clones would be something business would see as profitable, if they can be designated subhuman.

Even with pet laws in place, the cops can take your dog if it bites someone and destroy it with not much in the way of due process. Clones could reach the same legality as pets.

Kind of gives you something to consider, doesn’t it. (hum, a beautiful woman, made to order, not real bright, sexy as hell, not mouthy, bitchy, fussy, who’s main option in life is to please a guy sexually …:slight_smile: Not that I would ever approve of such a thing!!) :eek:

28

It probably says something depressing about human nature that we can begin visualizing ways of discriminating against. exploiting, and abusing a class of people who don’t even exist yet.

I realize SpyderA48 isn’t advocating these things; nonetheless, this whole attitude–“clones are unnatural and scary”–is just paving the way for exactly the sorts of abuses we most want to avoid.

Once again: Clones of human beings are human beings. More specifically, they are babies.

29

Spider’s objections fail.

Clones will NOT be designated slaves. If the public was all so in favor of slavery, then you’d think we’d have a ready-made source of slaves…the people who were slaves only a 150 years ago. If slavery was so popular then why don’t we re-enslave blacks?

I mean, think of the profits corporations could make! All it would take was some propaganda, some advertising, some bags of cash to our elected officials, and viola! Slavery, plus we solve the “urban underclass” problem, the problem of low education, the problem of gang violence…just enslave em all!

Besides, he’s talking about GENETIC ENGINEERING to create people with the correct characteristics, NOT cloning. This thread is NOT about genetic engineering, it is about cloning. If you have an objection to genetic engineering, start your own thread.

Of course corporations aren’t concerned about compassion, etc. They want to make money. Suppose you wanted to create an army of slave clones. Do you realize how much money that would take, setting aside the costs of repealing the 13th amendment? Where are you going to get the women to carry your clones? How are you going to prevent the local Family Services from taking your children away from you?

You do know that corporations cannot be considered parents of a child, right? Every child will have parents, the people who ordered the baby born. Although this is complicated, EVERY child has at least one parent the moment it is born. Sometimes this is complicated. Consider this scenario, possible with todays technology. An infertile couple gets donated sperm, donated eggs, and has a doctor create in vitro embryos from them. The embryos are implanted in a surrogate mother, who carries the baby to term. The baby is delivered. Who is the parent of the baby? The egg donor? The sperm donor? The doctor? The surrogate mother? No, the parents are the people who caused the baby to be created.

If Bill Gates creates an army of slave clones, he will be the legal parent of those clones. If he abuses the clones, then Family Services will take them away. Yes, it is easier for a rich and powerful person to avoid this. But generally it would be cheaper to provide non-abusive environments for the children than to constantly have to bribe officials, risk bad PR, expend favors, etc. Rich and powerful people abuse their children today. How would clones be any different?

And there we come to the heart of the argument. Would an army of slave clones be cheaper than hiring illegal immigrants? Think about the capital costs of creating the clones. Think about how much it would cost to maintain them. How would you prevent your slaves from just walking away? Illegal immigrants can be paid sub-standard wages under horrible conditions because the employer can externailze the costs of punishing them…he can call immigration, and the US taxpayers pick up the bill for shipping the workers back to Mexico.

The 13th and 14th amendments make slavery illegal. Since the clones would be created in the United States they would be US citizens…which makes sense since clones are indistinguishable from other human beings. But suppose we repealed that, and declared clones to be slaves. How could you enforce that? Suppose your slave clones ran away? You run after them and try to force them back to work. But the clone complains that he is not a slave, he is a free person. How are you going to prove he’s a slave? Back when slavery was legal, there was an easy way to do this…slaves were color coded. Free blacks were often simply kidnapped and enslaved, and the color of their skin meant that no one would complain.

How are you going to distinguish between slaves and free people? Especially since there is NO difference between clones and sexually created humans? If you envision a society where slavery becomes accepted, then THAT is the problem, NOT cloning. Yes, this country could turn fascist, it could re-institute slavery. But that is not the fault of cloning, for crying out loud! If clones are enslaved, everyone else will be enslaved too. If corporations have enough power to declare that clones are slaves, why not go a little farther and enslave everyone?

The “clones will be enslaved” argument fails.

30

I agree, but almost all of this has been covered in 30 years of intelligent science fiction books and movies. It is scary to stop and realize what can happen. I have no problems with cloning at all, but not everyone will feel the same. Larry Niven, a great Sci-fi writer, prior to joining up with that psycho, Pournell, brought up what could happen if we develop a way to preserve harvested organs for long periods of time, like years and knock out the rejection problem. One of his surmised problems would be ‘organlegging’ the illegal harvesting of organs and selling them on the black market. The other thing was due to the demand for organs being greater than the supply, laws would change, giving the death penalty for things like petty theft, assault, income tax fraud, and so on, so the ‘criminals’ would be ‘harvested’ for their organs to help meet the demands.

We’ve come close to that. In some nations, people sell organs or have had them stolen. We’ve had to enact strict laws and regulations governing the obtaining of human organs.

Lemur866

If we ever achieve true cloning, then we will be able to manipulate genetics also, so the two run hand in hand and my post is NOT about just genetics, which is why I did not start my own thread.

Never, ever doubt that people can, will and have pushed through unjust legislation designed according to their own desires. See term limits yet? Caps on malpractice suits? The modification of the 3 strike law? Pharmaceutical companies forced to not make outrageous profits on peoples lives? Full truth in advertising? The lowing of credit card interest? An end to frivolous lawsuits?

The Blacks are the best example of racial suppression, even with legal rights given to them prior to civil rights in the past.

Examine corporate law and it can make you ill with what major companies can do to screw you over. I’ve a friend who has been involved in an injury suit against his previous company for over 10 years!! He is injured, in constant pain, and is restricted by law to use company selected doctors, who keep saying his is not that bad while other doctors, not selected by the company and paid for by him, say he is disabled for life and will need surgery. His lawyer has flatly told him that the company will drag the suite out, hoping he settles for a tiny amount or die. Even now, the company sends private detectives around to try to catch him faking. He had to get a lawyer out of town also, because no local ones would sue the local company. The company has legally done things like make him drive 200 miles to a meeting, which causes him pain, then cancel the meeting when he arrives.

So, if people want slaves, they will get them and the first to introduce them will be big business. Humans or not.

Twenty years ago I never thought a person would be sued for jumping into a robbery and smacking the crook with a steel pipe. You can be sued by the crook now. I never thought anyone would have the right to sue a home owner for injuring themselves through their own fault on the home owners property! I never figured that a teacher could be sued for grabbing a kid by the arm! Nor, suits be brought against a school for keeping plague infected kids out. (AIDS carriers, when we first only had the vaguest idea of how it is spread.) I never thought a parent could go to jail for slapping his kid!! I never thought a school could be sued over requiring a student to take a drug test to be on a basketball team! I never figured professional sports players would make millions and charge for autographs!

Knowuddamean?

If there is enough profit in it, people will do it.

I never knew some of our own factories in WW2 were selling secretly to the enemy to gain greater profits! I was stunned to discover massive troop movements were held up for political face saving, which allowed hundreds of thousands of civilians to be slaughtered when they could have been saved.

It is doubtful that slavery will happen, but there is always the possibility. Never underestimate the potential for a person to take advantage of a situation for self enrichment. I mean, look at all of the magnetic therapy stuff being sold for fat prices when it has been proven that they do not work, along with the fabled copper bracelets.

31

Just because science fiction writers imagined it doesn’t mean that it will happen, or even be likely. Organlegging is not a problem because there really isn’t a vast undersupply of organs. We could have more simply by creating a legal, above-board market for organs. People don’t get organ transplants for frivolous reasons, organ transplants are difficult, dangerous, and expensive.

**

Wrong. These organ stealing stories are false, urban legends. Think about this. What skilled transplant surgeon is going to risk his career doing illegal transplants? They already make vast sums of money doing this legally. What would the surgeons have to gain? The strict laws regarding obtaining organs were NOT enacted to cope with unethical organ harvesting, they have been in place since the very first organ transplants. Your analogy to organ transplantation fails.

**

Why would you say this? We could do human cloning today. Cloning does NOT run hand in hand with genetic engineering, except that both are part of the biotechnology revolution. We could have cloning without genetic engineering or genetic engineering without cloning. One has nothing to do with the other.

**

No. Sure, people are bastards. That’s why we have laws. Just because lots of people wish blacks were still slaves doesn’t mean that they will be re-enslaved. We live under the rule of law. Where is the vast swell of public opinion that clones should be slaves? You’re going to get this past the supreme court? This makes zero sense. OK, you’re worried about the reinstatement of slavery. What does cloning have to do with slavery? Who thinks that clones should be slaves? How are corporations going to convince people to reinstate slavery? Don’t be silly. If corporations could convince people to reinstate slavery, THEN WHY HAVEN’T THEY DONE IT ALREADY??? Sure, we can imagine all kinds of horrible scenarios where we lose our civil rights and become slaves. What does that have to do with cloning?

We are talking about cloning within the context of our current social system. Sure, cloning could be abused by a totalitarian dictatorship. We don’t live under a totalitarian dictatorship. There is nothing about cloning that makes a totalitarian dictatorship more likely. Why would cloning destroy our civil rights? This argument fails, sorry.

**

What does your friends problem have to do with cloning? Nothing. So people who work for corporations are bastards. That doesn’t mean they’ll be able to have slaves.

**

People do not want slaves. Where is the big business pro-slavery lobby? It does not exist. You’re making stuff up now. Let’s operate in the real world, not paranoid fantasy. Again, this would be a problem with the reinstatement of slavery, NOT A PROBLEM OF CLONING. Explain to me how cloning makes the reinstatement of slavery more likely. No one with a brain will buy the argument that clones are more suited to be slaves than other people. My sisters are clones. Does that make you think they should be enslaved? Does anyone, anywhere in the world really beleive that my sisters should be enslaved simply because they are clones? No, there is not a single person on planet earth who actually thinks clones should be enslaved. Your worries are baseless paranoid fantasies.
**

Again, what does this have to do with cloning? Nothing. Worry about slavery if you wish. Again, what does this have to do with cloning? Nothing. If corporations wanted slavery why would they have to wait for cloning? They could round up orphans and street kids today, and convince everyone it was great…if they had the power you fantasize they do. Besides, slavery is more expensive than simply hiring unskilled labor. Slavery and cloning are separate issues. Yes, lots of bad things could happen in the future. Why does cloning make those bad things more likely?

Again, again, again, WHAT DOES SLAVERY HAVE TO DO WITH CLONING???

32

But, as Spyder pointed out in one of his posts (and has not followed up much in his subsequent arguments) there is a group of people, still large in the world, who hold on to the belief that behind the sperm/egg conception there is an underlying supernatural (be it magickal or divine)phenomenon, and that somehow any other way of reproducing a human is a violation of the order of the universe. Their line of thought tends to follow the same fallacy as claims of the “horrible consequences” of evolution. You know the ones: that if man is “just another animal” then he has no reason to behave morally and that’s why there is atheism, humanism, communism, rap music, Larry Flynt, dogs and cats living together, etc. Substitute “man-made” for “just another animal”
Lemur686 is right, of course: there is rule of laws, and the right thing to do is to proclaim immediately and inequivocally that any living individual that is genetically of the species H. sapiens, whatever the method of his or her origin is completely, absolutely and irrevocably a citizen and legal person, with rights. Have everyone and anyone caught attempting to make a clone-slave, drawn and quartered at Olympic Stadium. Revise estate law so cloned offspring are on equal (no better, no worse) footing with natural or adoptive offspring (jurisdictions where you can leave offspring altogether off the will just on your say-so may have to give up that tradition). I’d rather have the development of human cloning happen in one of the societies that believe in human rights and the rule of law, than in some laissez-faire “life is cheap” environment.
Sure, socially there may be some bigotry against the cloned. But that is a looong way from the horror scenario. And like he said, if enslavement and exploitation are the issue, corporations and governments RIGHT NOW have billions of humans to whom they can do that without spending one red cent to breed them.
[nitpick]
BTW, Lemur, if as I infer your sisters are a set of identical twins, they are “a” clone. All the “identical” individuals together form a clone.
[/nitpick]

33

I’d be willing to bet that if and when a human being is cloned, the Pope and other major religious leaders will be quick to proclaim that clones are people too, and have souls and so on and so forth–probably at the same time that they also condemn human cloning as unnatural and contrary to the will of God. (Hate the act of cloning but love the clone, so to speak.) I’m sure the Catholic Church and other major religious bodies would not say that test-tube babies aren’t people, or deny them baptism and communion, even though the Catholic Church disapproves of artificial insemination techniques. Of course, some religious nuts may in fact believe that clones are soulless imps of Satan and act accordingly…just as a few members of fringe heretical sects say that blacks and Jews are “mud people” and not descendants of Adam and not really fully human (and occasionally act accordingly).

34

I’m just going to throw my two cents in here,

I feel personally that science is the only true way to whatever it is we’re here to do. Our existence as human beings began with science (Knowledge was granted to us for eating the fruit in Eden), and so I feel it shall also end that way. With that said I feel that Human Cloning should be allowed to go through if not for the medical value of it then simply so that we can say we can, learn something from doing it, and then advance onto greater things yet. I can’t stand fundamentalists who stand in the way of great breakthroughs merely because they are “unethical”, could be misused, and/or some other thing like that! I use the example of stem cells. Fundamentalists are rallying to ban the use of stem cells as medical cures because they must be taken from fetices (sp?) and thus is “unethical”, yet these same stem cells have successful rebuilt lost/missing/damaged brain cells and spinal cord injuries in mice, and the researchers onthe project feel that the step into humans is almost exactly similar. Don’t get me wrong though, mankind has misused technology/science and will continue to do so, but that’s no reason just to stop learning all together. (And as a side note, need I remind you that it was these same fndamentalists that caused the dark ages and sent the world into a scientific stand-still for approx. 100 - 200 years?)

35

Stoid, you might want to check out this site.

36

Archangel111, I agree completely with the substantive part of your post.

However on your side note…

Yes, you do need to remind us, because “these same fundamentalists” did NOT “cause the dark ages.” Now, if the statement were: “political-social-religious zealots, philosophically akin to these fundamentalists, had an important part in the coming of…” I’d say that’s very likely.

And if we’re referring to the period from the 500’s to the early 1000’s AD, “the WORLD” was not at a knowledge standstill, Europe was. When you average it out over historical time, a one to two hundred year “standstill” for one major region is par for the course (before the invention of the printing press). Unless you meant a 1000 to 2000 year standstill, which is even harder to blame on “these same fundamentalists”.

(BTW, Alexandria notwhitstanding, people forget that the West was hardly a great hotbed of scientific thought and progress in Roman time, Rome was coasting on Greco-Egyptian science from the previous millennium.)
jrd

37

Let me give you a few examples of legal/illegal abuses that people contrive to use today, in our enlightened world.

See the examples of these religious sects, where one man, like Koresh, sets himself up as a direct representative of God and virtually enslaves his followers, including to having sex with the wives of the men, grabbing up control of their money, their lives, defying man made laws, and even to convincing them to either suicide all at once or have an execution group to make sure stragglers suicide against their will. Johnstown comes to mind.

Examine the Mormon social structure, where the church elders are in absolute control.

Look at the initial reasons for Unions, because businesses treated employees like slaves, forcing them to work in dangerous conditions for low pay with no benefits.

Look at your new car. It could be safer, but the companies will not make them better because it will cut into their major profit picture. (Last year, all major auto companies displayed profits in the billions.)

Look at the reason for the creation of consumer laws and federal regulations. Companies happily sold you medications that contained Mercury and Arsenic and would kill you, knowing full well they would, but concentrating on the profits. Toys would be painted with lead paint, teething rings filled with dirty water, and we have all heard nightmare stories of used car dealers before protection laws were passed.

Inbreeding choice animals has created genetic diseases, like the cute Shitzu is often allergic to nearly everything and develops skin rashes, plus short, stubby dogs like it have inherited back and hip problems. The Dachshund has chronic spine problems, they almost have bred the Collies brains out of it’s small, narrow skull, and pug-faced dogs have chronic nasal breathing problems, some drool constantly and some are unpredictably nasty. Animal cruelty groups are up in arms about this, but people want purebreds. So, there is a big business in creating these animals with inherited defects.

People want this. Businesses capitalize on creating defective animals.

Look at the belief of the Nation of Islam religion, predominately Black, where the White race is considered to be demons created specifically to harass the Black man.

If big business and people want it, it will happen.

We have child labor laws here in the States, so major companies farm out work to nations where it is legal for kids to work 12 hour days in unsafe conditions for $2 an hour.

It is legal to sell body parts in India, or was.

We still have a high demand for organs. People still die while waiting for transplants and some transplants are harder to obtain than others. Watch the hospital programs on TV.

So, if a clone never obtains complete human rights and is reduced to property, anything can happen. Most Christian religions have concerns over creating life without the sperm and egg thing, feeling, inappropriately, that it violates God’s laws. Look at the ongoing struggle in the Catholic Church over simple birth control and in many Islamic nations.

You never know what the public is going to be talked into accepting. Like the partial birth abortion. Personally, I consider that about the most horrible thing to be accepted, but it was passed through congress, who are supposed to be our wise leaders. Yet, this same congress passed the humane lethal injection, deciding that other forms of execution were cruel and inhuman.

Think about it. How many products do you use today because of good advertisement campaigns by big business. Rebocks? Over priced shoes that you get to pay more for. Herbal supplements? They’re not even regulated and the industry is blocking attempts by congress to get them regulated to protect us! Coca-Cola? Pepsi? Gerber? Sports wear? ($20 for a $5 shirt).

Look at helmet laws. First passed to keep cycle riders from spilling their brains all over the streets and to keep insurance costs down, then, through a cycle rider lobby, abandoned. The drug companies are making vast profits, assuring everyone that the costs are high because of research expenses, which is why you pay $10 for one pill that they made for 50 cents. Bunk! People believe this and the pharmicutial lobbies in congress are very powerful.

So, almost anything is possible if we start developing true clones. The military will be interested. How long after creating true clones do you figure the Military might figure out a way to have a person sell or sign over the rights to one or two clones, to avoid military service, which will then be raised in a military environment to create a better soldier?

I mean, why go to the military and face all of that abuse to go out and shoot someone when, for a $5,000 ‘bonus’ (cheaper than training one recruit in basic training) you sell the military the right to one clone and some skin scrapings?

Lets see now. People hate the necessary animal testing for everything from make-up to drugs. So, you sell them the rights to one clone to experiment on. Limiting certain proteins in the initial stages of brain growth will create a docile, semi-moron so the clone will not be fully intelligent. (The protein deficit has been observed in children in areas of extreme poverty.)

Think clones can’t be ‘dehumanized’? Look at the huge psychological anticigarette campaign being waged now. against tobacco, over riding the rights of smokers, tobacco farmers, people who depend on the tobacco companies for work and so on.

Look again at the massive ‘smoking is great’ campaigns of the past, including those telling you that smoking is good for you.

Notice the massive beer campaigns, which range from portraying swilling beer as a vacation to some exotic place, to being sexy, cool, manly, and firmly entrenched in sports. Right in the middle of a massive drunk driving crack down. The beer industry is not concerned for your safety, but about your money. See Ice beers. They contain higher alcohol because some of the water is removed through freezing. So, as they tell you to drink responsively, they give you a beer to get you drunk quicker.

If there is any business advantage in cloning, someone will capitalize on it. People can be talked into passing almost any law if hammered enough with information designed by psychiatrists to sound good to them. I mean, look at the political campaigns. There are records of States and Cities putting corrupt leaders, who have been convicted of crimes, right back in office!

Look at the archaic but still used confusing Chicago political ward systems and political power grabbing that has even hampered emergency services in times of crisis!

So, if big business wants it, they’ll persuade people to accept it. (Like those great TV promotions, where you pay $100 for a new invention, then a year later it is in the store for $50. We know those initial prices will be high, so the inventor can make his millions fast and cover costs, then later, will contract with department stores to mass sell the things more cheaply. Yet, folks still buy them as soon as they hit the screen!)

Look at the ongoing struggle over corporate pollution and the current resistance, internationally, for America to join the other nations in cutting down on industrial CO2 emissions! Everyone else agrees, but America doesn’t, claiming it will hurt our industries. BUNK!

You get the picture. It might never happen that clones will be dehumanized, but that is something we need to look at closely as a possibility.

A great example of public power is the neutron bomb. It was banned. It was actually a more humane weapon for warfare. It killed everything in an area, but left cities intact and functional. The major killer after a bomb attack is disease and lack of help, water, or food due to the mass destruction of roads, services, supplies, buildings, fires and bridges. With the use of a Neutron bomb, these things would be left, so survivors as well as rescuers could make use of them to recover. The chances of war diseases would drop sharply.

Some group decided that it was inhumane (apparently, vaporizing people, leaving survivors without help, supplies or escape routes is acceptable) and congress banned it.

You never know what ‘intelligent, thinking, average people’ are going to agree with. Humans are unpredictable. Even protection laws, enacted by congress, can be revoked. How many amendments have been added to the constitution over the years? Look how lawyers can twist the laws about.

Cloning, a potential boon to mankind can easily be abused. All ramifications need to be examined, which is why I like Science Fiction writers, because they have already thought of these things and put them in print.

38

Spyder’s objections are, for lack of a better word, bizarre, and Lemur has done an excellent job of refuting them.

Cloning is just another form of reproduction, just like in vitro fertilization, which was revolutionary and scary in 1978 and is now just another way for infertile couples to have babies. Cloning research would have to be conducted under strict ethical protocols, but I see no serious objection to it.

39

Wading into this only because we recently debunked this very thing over here:

Neutron Bomb

As to the rest–Spyder, for the sake of arguement I will agree with you that human beings are basically evil, and that any potenetial for personal gain/enrichment/pleasure wil be exploited regardless of what it might cost someone else, ok? You don’t need to give any more lurid examples, we have all heard them all before and we all agree 100% that human beings are bad. That in mind:
What makes you think that clones are any more likely to be the victem of explotation than anyone else?

Please answer that question in 100 words or less. Answer it like it was an essay quesion in school, starting off with “Clones are more likely to be the victems of expliotation than other people because . . .”

If you do that, perhaps we can understand where you are coming from a little better.

40

. . . wha’fuck?

Spyder, in case goboy didn’t say it loudly enough:

Cloning is just another form of reproduction.
Cloning is just another form of reproduction.
Cloning is just another form of reproduction.
Cloning is just another form of reproduction.

Oh, and a few things:

Your opinion, not fact.

Your opinion, not fact.

Because cloning is another form of reproduction, the children produced are real children, not automatons, and slavery is illegal.

Do you honestly think that because we have a different way to make babies we’re going to begin selling humans again? If so, I’d really like to know what bizarre though processes are involved in formulating that belief. Or perhaps you’d just like to admit that you have fundamental moral issues with human cloning?