# Why is human cloning banned? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 30, 2008, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128 "2008-05-30T12:43:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/41 "2008-05-30T18:47:10Z")
[QUOTE=Plexi Guy] Not really. The most of the scientists (but not all) _think_ it’s not related, but they haven’t actually studied it. Unless there is a very high rate of that cancer, I’d say the impetus is to prove that it was **not** related. [/QUOTE] From the wiki link, bolding mine: > [@](#): > > An autopsy showed she had a form of lung cancer called Jaagsiekte that is a fairly common disease of sheep and is caused by the retrovirus JSRV. Roslin scientists stated that they did not think there was a connection with Dolly’s being a clone, and that other sheep in the same flock had died of the same disease. **Such lung diseases are a particular danger for sheep kept indoors, and Dolly had to sleep inside for security reasons.** 1. this was cancer caused by a retrovirus. 2. there _was_ a high rate of that cancer. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/42 "2008-05-30T18:47:31Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Huh? I don’t understand. If I said something that made you angry, I can’t imagine what that might be. That’s if you’re talking about insulting people outside the Pit. But that doesn’t seem likely, so there must be some other board rule, but I can’t figure out what you’re talking about. Raising clones as organ slaves just doesn’t make sense. I suppose it could happen in places like North Korea, where an absolute dictator can grow clones for organ harvest. But banning human cloning in western countries certainly can’t prevent dictators from harvesting organs from their identical twins. The only thing we need to do is recognize that cloning creates a human baby, and that baby will born from the womb of a human mother for the forseeable future. That human baby will have all the human and civil rights of every other human baby. In countries that violate human rights routinely, that baby might become a slave…but every other citizen of that country is similarly a slave. And even if we had uterine replicators so we could grow cloned babies in vitro, it seems to me that it would still be much more common to grow conventionally fertillized embroys in vitro, rather than cloned babies. All the parents who currently seek out surrogate mothers could simply use a uterine replicator. And then once it’s mainstreamed for infertile women, using a uterine replicator will be seen as the mark of a spoiled yuppie mother who doesn’t want to undergo natural childbearing. But even so, such a method can’t be used to create an army of slave soldiers, because at the end you still have a human baby, who has to be raised to young adulthood before they’re worth anything. And given that parents already raise children to the age of 18 for free, what fascist regime is going to invest in a decades-long childrearing program, when they can simply conscript as many already existing 18 year olds as they like, and send them to the front lines? Or if you want to indoctrinate the kids thoroughly, conscript them at age 10 instead of at birth, and you halve the cost of creating your slave army. [/QUOTE] I was talking about the taboo of Godwinizing a thread. (Sorry for the confusion.) There are examples of societies that do whats easy and convenient, if there is nothing to stop them. I _hope_ that most societies are humane enough that they would afford full rights to clones. But I wouldn’t bet my life on it. Maybe I’m too cynical for my own good. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/43 "2008-05-30T18:54:33Z")
[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia] You couldn’t bring back Hitler. Even with a viable sample to clone from, and taking as a given that we’ve achieved the level of technical sophistication required to successfully clone a human being, the result would simply be a guy who’s the genetic twin of Hitler. He’d have his own personality, his environment and influences would be different than his donor’s, and because of diet, exercise (or lack thereof) fashion, and other factors, he probably wouldn’t even look much like the Hitler we know. [/QUOTE] Yee of little imagination. Don’t you watch movies? 😉 > [@](#): > > Gregory Peck portrays the infamous Nazi, Dr. Josef Mengele, who, while hiding in South America, plans the beginning of the Fourth Reich with other Nazi sympathizers. Laurence Olivier portrays Ezra Lieberman, a famed Nazi hunter. > > Dr. Mengele’s plan is to recreate the childhood of Hitler for the 95 young boys he cloned from Hitler. > > SOURCE: [The Boys from Brazil](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077269/synopsis) ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/44 "2008-05-30T18:58:42Z")
[QUOTE=Tastes of Chocolate] I think there is also a distrust of WHY someone would want to be cloned. Other then someone doing it once, just to show it can be done, the first reasons that pop up, at least for me, are: 1. replacement body parts 2. ego - I’m so good, the world needs more of me. 3. control - this baby/clone will be mine, ALL MINE. Bwahahaha. The idea of a rich someone, and let’s admit cloning would take money, would be able to create a clone for any of the above reasons is, for me, a majority of the Ewww factor. [/QUOTE] **Antinor** noted that people already have children for reasons 2 and 3. People have had children for reason 1 as well - there have [already been cases](http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21429909-5001021,00.html) in which parents have conceived a child in hopes that he/she will be a suitable tissue donor for an older sibling. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/45 "2008-05-30T19:19:22Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] I was talking about the taboo of Godwinizing a thread. (Sorry for the confusion.) There are examples of societies that do whats easy and convenient, if there is nothing to stop them. I _hope_ that most societies are humane enough that they would afford full rights to clones. But I wouldn’t bet my life on it. Maybe I’m too cynical for my own good. [/QUOTE] But my point is that it ISN’T easy or convenient to create an army of clone soldiers, or clone organ slaves. Organ slaves are just about the opposite of convenient, they are an incredible extravagance. Yes, we can imagine an incredibly wealthy sociopath creating a clone of himself, then having the clone murdered so the sociopath can get a heart transplant. But this requires several things to happen. The person must be incredibly wealth…not just a multimillionaire, but far beyond that. The person must be a sociopath who doesn’t mind murder. And, this is the important part, that incredibly wealthy sociopath must be sick with a disease that requires an organ transplant. Otherwise, they’ve raised their slave since babyhood for nothing. And of course, they’ll have to find a team of transplant surgeons willing to murder the donor for them. There are only a few top transplant teams in the world. And it seems to me that none of them are willing to muder healthy people to get their organs. Not even for millions of dollars. You need to find a team of surgeons who are the top doctors in the world. And who are sociopaths willing to kill. And who need millions of dollars. And are willing to take the risk of going to jail for that million dollars, and more importantly to such a hypothetical sociopath top surgeon, risk the end of their career. As I said, such a thing could happen in a dictatorship, where a few top officials maintain organ slaves for themselves. But it certainly won’t be common, because why would the oligarchs provide multimillion dollar medical care to anyone who wasn’t an oligarch? And again, the problem isn’t cloning, because these oligarchs can simply order their men to round up orphans from the slums, tissue type them, and harvest organs from the kids who match? Even in a current day Nazi Germany, such a thing would not be common, cloned organ slaves would be a footnote. If you’re really worried about a future society where amoral people routinely clone themselves and have the clones murdered or abused, then don’t worry about stopping cloning, worry about the collapse of liberal democracy instead. If liberal democracy collapses and cloned organ slaves are common, then the slavery and murder of a few clones will be the least of our problems, because the rest of us will also be slaves. As for cloning Hitler, how would an identical twin of Hitler be a benefit to the neo-nazis, except as a mascot? Hitler led a mass movement in 1930s Germany because 1930s Germany was ripe for such a mass movement. Drop Hitler into today’s Germany, and he’d get himself a job painting houses [insert _The Producers_ reference here], not recreating the Nazi party. 2008 Germany wouldn’t be bying, and 2008 Hitler wouldn’t be selling. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/46 "2008-05-30T19:26:11Z")
[QUOTE=cwthree] **Antinor** noted that people already have children for reasons 2 and 3. People have had children for reason 1 as well - there have [already been cases](http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21429909-5001021,00.html) in which parents have conceived a child in hopes that he/she will be a suitable tissue donor for an older sibling. [/QUOTE] Right, but note that the second child isn’t going to be killed to provide tissue for the older sibling. So a cloned child could be a tissue or organ donor for the genetic parent of the child, but only in circumstances where any other child who was also a tissue match could be a tissue or organ donor. If you had kidney disease and your child was a tissue match, it might be ethical for your child to donate a kidney, or bone marrow, or what have you. But it wouldn’t matter if the child was a cloned child or a conventionally conceived child. Depending on the circumstances it would either be ethical to ask the child to donate tissue or it wouldn’t, but whether that child was a clone or not is ethically irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/47 "2008-05-30T20:03:08Z")
[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia] You couldn’t bring back Hitler. Even with a viable sample to clone from, and taking as a given that we’ve achieved the level of technical sophistication required to successfully clone a human being, the result would simply be a guy who’s the genetic twin of Hitler. He’d have his own personality, his environment and influences would be different than his donor’s, and because of diet, exercise (or lack thereof) fashion, and other factors, he probably wouldn’t even look much like the Hitler we know. [/QUOTE] From what I recall of the hoopla about cloning when Dolly etc came out, a lot of people don’t realize that. They get their idea of cloning from sci-fi where “clones” are perfect mental and physical duplicates. And, usually decanted from tubes as adults, not born as babies. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/48 "2008-05-30T20:29:20Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] From what I recall of the hoopla about cloning when Dolly etc came out, a lot of people don’t realize that. They get their idea of cloning from sci-fi where “clones” are perfect mental and physical duplicates. And, usually decanted from tubes as adults, not born as babies. [/QUOTE] Sadly, I suspect many Americans still believe this. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/49 "2008-05-30T21:06:22Z")
[QUOTE=Antinor01] I just hope I’m sexually compatible with Antinor02. [/QUOTE] [The Clone Song](http://members.tripod.com/~bardic_circle/aclone.htm) To the tune of “Home on the Range”: "Oh, give me a clone Of my own flesh and bone With its Y chromosome changed to X. And after it’s grown, Then my own little clone Will be of the opposite sex. Clone, clone of my own, With its Y chromosome changed to X. And when I’m alone With my own little clone We will both think of nothing but sex. … ." ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/50 "2008-05-30T21:07:34Z")
Well done Pochacco! The only tiny problem is that I don’t want my clone to be of the opposite sex. At least not if I’m gonna be attracted to it. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/51 "2008-05-30T21:11:14Z")
[QUOTE=Antinor01] Well done Pochacco! [/QUOTE] I’m just passing it along. Isaac Asimov deserves all the credit … . ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/52 "2008-05-30T21:24:13Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] From what I recall of the hoopla about cloning when Dolly etc came out, a lot of people don’t realize that. They get their idea of cloning from sci-fi where “clones” are perfect mental and physical duplicates. And, usually decanted from tubes as adults, not born as babies. [/QUOTE] Didn’t Ripley get cloned in one of the \*Aliens \*with the alien baby still inside the clone? Or some such BS. ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/53 "2008-05-31T01:42:16Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] Right, but note that the second child isn’t going to be killed to provide tissue for the older sibling. So a cloned child could be a tissue or organ donor for the genetic parent of the child, but only in circumstances where any other child who was also a tissue match could be a tissue or organ donor. If you had kidney disease and your child was a tissue match, it might be ethical for your child to donate a kidney, or bone marrow, or what have you. But it wouldn’t matter if the child was a cloned child or a conventionally conceived child. Depending on the circumstances it would either be ethical to ask the child to donate tissue or it wouldn’t, but whether that child was a clone or not is ethically irrelevant. [/QUOTE] That was pretty much what I was getting at. Tastes of Chocolate listed three distasteful scenarios involving human cloning, and we’ve determined that each one has already been realized without cloning. So yes, the cloned-ness of the child in question is not relevant. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/54 "2008-06-01T04:38:10Z")
[QUOTE=cwthree] As I understand it, human reproduction via the traditional biological route has a high failure rate as well. Shall we debate the ethics of ovulation+sexual intercourse as a method of baby-making? [/QUOTE] Apples and oranges. The failure rate of cloning is many times higher AND gross abominations are almost inevitable. In other words, it’s practically a foregone conclusion that the first human clones will not live very long or will be hideous freaks. The natural human reproductive process is many times more reliable in contrast. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/55 "2008-06-01T04:50:55Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] Didn’t Ripley get cloned in one of the \*Aliens \*with the alien baby still inside the clone? Or some such BS. [/QUOTE] While I never watched it ( word of mouth was . . . less than encouraging ), [it appears so](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Resurrection). From just a blood sample, no less. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/56 "2008-06-01T05:08:59Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] Apples and oranges. The failure rate of cloning is many times higher AND gross abominations are almost inevitable. In other words, it’s practically a foregone conclusion that the first human clones will not live very long or will be hideous freaks. The natural human reproductive process is many times more reliable in contrast. [/QUOTE] Could you stick up your stats? I wouldn’t mind having a look at them for a future debate. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/57 "2008-06-01T05:57:26Z")
**Revenant** , you’re not going to get stats on the success rate of human cloning. Why? \*\*Because it isn’t done. \*\* However, our own experience with animal cloning shows it to be a difficult and extremely error-prone process. Couple that with our very limited knowledge of the human development process at the cellular level, and you have a recipe for disaster. As for the success rate of natural human reproduction, everyday experience shows it to be a pretty darned reliable process. Not perfect by any means, but not the sort of thing in which early deaths and freakish abominations are practically inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![essell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/34f0e0/32.png) [@essell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/essell)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/58 "2008-06-01T14:23:13Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] As for the success rate of natural human reproduction, everyday experience shows it to be a pretty darned reliable process. Not perfect by any means, but not the sort of thing in which early deaths and freakish abominations are practically inevitable. [/QUOTE] What percentage of normal pregnancies make it to full term? Something like a quarter, maybe as many as 50%, naturally abort. Often before a woman knows she’s pregnant. Clearly early deaths are very common, allegedly because nature knows something’s gone wrong and takes appropriate action, or maybe it’s just bad luck. How is that different to Doctors trying to clone humans and ending each project until they get it right? If we can get to a 50 - 75% success rate we’re keeping up with nature. In terms of nature’s freakish abominations, check out the BBC program “Top of the Pops”. ---
**Author:** ![1010011010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ea666f/32.png) [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/59 "2008-06-01T14:42:13Z")
Clones would not have been imbued with an immortal soul by the Lord Your God. Thus they would serve as an empty husk to facilitate the return of the Prince of Darkness, who would rule over Hell on Earth for a thousand years. None will be spared. Please. Think of the children. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128/60 "2008-06-01T16:03:16Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] **Revenant** , you’re not going to get stats on the success rate of human cloning. Why? \*\*Because it isn’t done. \*\* However, our own experience with animal cloning shows it to be a difficult and extremely error-prone process. Couple that with our very limited knowledge of the human development process at the cellular level, and you have a recipe for disaster. As for the success rate of natural human reproduction, everyday experience shows it to be a pretty darned reliable process. Not perfect by any means, but not the sort of thing in which early deaths and freakish abominations are practically inevitable. [/QUOTE] I wouldn’t necessarily say that. I would have thought miscarriages were pretty common, actually, and I would say the amount of people with freakish abominations depends what you mean by that - would you include the blind from birth, people with cleft palates, and so forth? Put apart they amount to a small amount of all births, but I would imagine that added up they’d add up to a decent swarth of the population. That’s why I wanted stats - I wanted to know what we’re comparing against. I’d also point out that the general idea of cloning is that it’s a process that’s improvable. Natural reproduction is not. I would say your view is somewhat short-sighted - we might certainly end up with a higher than normal amount of disabled or otherwise severe-problem having people, but I think the idea is to end up with _fewer_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-human-cloning-banned/451128.md?page=4)