A moral quiz for the anti-cloners
As a developmental biologist and a free thinker I sit securely with the majority of scientists that favor therapeutic cloning. I'm also part of the silent majority of scientists that favor reproductive cloning once the technique has been perfected. And by perfected I mean to the point at which primate experiments and genetic screening have made the technique even safer than traditional reproduction and not, like the anti-science people would have you believe, necessitating a pile of deformed babies. I am aghast at how so many people can act righteous and morally superior about preventing a technology that will save so many lives all for the sake of idealism. In my most bitter moments I sometimes wish that such people would sign a pact saying that they would never accept a cloned organ or cell therapy for them or there children (if they let there children decide, well that would be pro-choice, wouldn't it?). I mean will Bush really be against this technology when one of his daughters needs a cloned liver transplant due to excessive drinking? 
So come now, anti-cloners, awe me with your superior moral reasoning by taking the following quiz. Justify your responses as you like (invoke God if you must, but remember that this is America, not the Taliban and you should be able to provide an objective reason for limiting someone else's freedoms).
Question 1:
You and your spouse have fertility problems. You go through IVF treatments and the doctors successfully produce one embryo. The odds of implantation with one embryo are 1 in 10 and your out of money. The IVF doc offers to wait for the embryo to divide a little and then split it into two, then four embryos so that you will have four shots at producing a child. Presume this technique is entirely safe (this is, after all how natural twins form). Do you assent or is it God's will (forgetting for a moment that God didn't want you to conceive in the first place) for you to have only one shot at it.
Question 2:
Say the IVF doc implants one of the embryos, but is miscarried in the first trimester due to naturally occurring deformities. Shortly afterward the gene responsible for causing such deformities is found and identified in the three remaining embryos (presume you answered yes to #2 or it "naturally" divided in the dish). The IVF doc offers to repair the defect in the remaining embryos using genetic recombination and try again. Presume the technique is 100% effective or, much more likely, 100% confirmable before implantation. Do you do it?
Question 3:
Let's say you (or your spouse) goes to term this time. You have a beautiful daughter who at the age of 12 is exposed to a toxic agent which requires a transplant with a cloned organ or she will die. The technique involves removing a skin cell from the child and cloning it into a fertilized embryo. Would you allow the lifesaving procedure if:
A. You had to use one of the remaining embryos kept in cold storage- manipulating it to turn directly (not harvested from a cloned person) into the required organ in culture?
B. The frozen embryos were destroyed by mistake and you had to use someone else's extra IVF embryos to clone your daughter's DNA into, but otherwise same as A.
C. You could clone your child's DNA into a fertilized chimp egg (due to the 98.9% similiarity of humans and chimps once your child's nucleus is placed in the embryo the egg becomes fully capable of growing into a full human adult- zero chimp DNA is retained, no chimp qualities passed, and most importantly no human embryos "sacrificed") then turn it into an organ in culture.
D. Same as C, but BEFORE cloning in your child's DNA you alter it's genes so that it can only develop into the required organ and, therefore, never constitutes a real human embryo?
Question 4:
Your daughter get's killed in a car accident at the age of 12 (let's say this happened instead of the toxic incident). Your still young and want another child, but you (or your spouse) can no longer produce eggs (even with IVF)
A. Would you take one of the remaining embryos kept in cold storage to term?
B. Let's say one of the remaining embryos was damaged, but the nucleus was intact. Would you allow that to be cloned into a donated egg presuming the technique is as safe as traditional conception?
C. Same as B, but with a chimp egg (again, no chimp qualities or genes are passed and no human embryos are destroyed, and the technique is proven to be no different in result than "natural" conception)?
Wonder what my answer's to the above questions are? You will probably be able to infer what they are by knowing that my justification in every case is simple- my daughter gets to live. And yet, somehow I'm morally wrong in the eyes of many.
P.S. I'm aware that for question #4 the cloned child is a distinct person from the donor, but nevertheless you do indeed have a living daughter if you answer "yes".
[ 11-26-2001: Message edited by: Nordstrodamus ]</p>
So come now, anti-cloners, awe me with your superior moral reasoning by taking the following quiz. Justify your responses as you like (invoke God if you must, but remember that this is America, not the Taliban and you should be able to provide an objective reason for limiting someone else's freedoms).
Question 1:
You and your spouse have fertility problems. You go through IVF treatments and the doctors successfully produce one embryo. The odds of implantation with one embryo are 1 in 10 and your out of money. The IVF doc offers to wait for the embryo to divide a little and then split it into two, then four embryos so that you will have four shots at producing a child. Presume this technique is entirely safe (this is, after all how natural twins form). Do you assent or is it God's will (forgetting for a moment that God didn't want you to conceive in the first place) for you to have only one shot at it.
Question 2:
Say the IVF doc implants one of the embryos, but is miscarried in the first trimester due to naturally occurring deformities. Shortly afterward the gene responsible for causing such deformities is found and identified in the three remaining embryos (presume you answered yes to #2 or it "naturally" divided in the dish). The IVF doc offers to repair the defect in the remaining embryos using genetic recombination and try again. Presume the technique is 100% effective or, much more likely, 100% confirmable before implantation. Do you do it?
Question 3:
Let's say you (or your spouse) goes to term this time. You have a beautiful daughter who at the age of 12 is exposed to a toxic agent which requires a transplant with a cloned organ or she will die. The technique involves removing a skin cell from the child and cloning it into a fertilized embryo. Would you allow the lifesaving procedure if:
A. You had to use one of the remaining embryos kept in cold storage- manipulating it to turn directly (not harvested from a cloned person) into the required organ in culture?
B. The frozen embryos were destroyed by mistake and you had to use someone else's extra IVF embryos to clone your daughter's DNA into, but otherwise same as A.
C. You could clone your child's DNA into a fertilized chimp egg (due to the 98.9% similiarity of humans and chimps once your child's nucleus is placed in the embryo the egg becomes fully capable of growing into a full human adult- zero chimp DNA is retained, no chimp qualities passed, and most importantly no human embryos "sacrificed") then turn it into an organ in culture.
D. Same as C, but BEFORE cloning in your child's DNA you alter it's genes so that it can only develop into the required organ and, therefore, never constitutes a real human embryo?
Question 4:
Your daughter get's killed in a car accident at the age of 12 (let's say this happened instead of the toxic incident). Your still young and want another child, but you (or your spouse) can no longer produce eggs (even with IVF)
A. Would you take one of the remaining embryos kept in cold storage to term?
B. Let's say one of the remaining embryos was damaged, but the nucleus was intact. Would you allow that to be cloned into a donated egg presuming the technique is as safe as traditional conception?
C. Same as B, but with a chimp egg (again, no chimp qualities or genes are passed and no human embryos are destroyed, and the technique is proven to be no different in result than "natural" conception)?
Wonder what my answer's to the above questions are? You will probably be able to infer what they are by knowing that my justification in every case is simple- my daughter gets to live. And yet, somehow I'm morally wrong in the eyes of many.
P.S. I'm aware that for question #4 the cloned child is a distinct person from the donor, but nevertheless you do indeed have a living daughter if you answer "yes".
[ 11-26-2001: Message edited by: Nordstrodamus ]</p>
Comments
<strong>I am aghast at how so many people can act righteous and morally superior about preventing a technology that will save so many lives all for the sake of idealism.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm aghast at how you show no understanding of other people's objections to these techniques. Are you ignorant of just don't care? Why is it so hard for people like you to understand that for other people is it wrong to "create life" just to "end" it for someone else gain.
I'm not taking sides on this issue but you show a lack on understanding and compassion for other people feelings on this issue.
Sorry, cloning a human being is something that just doesn't sit right with me. Some ideas carry with them too much negative potential...this is one of them. You honestly think the scientific community at large is ethical enough and objective enough to always do the right thing where cloning is involved? Sorry. I don't. I may not know much, but I know yours is a cut-throat profession if there ever was one.
There is far too much greed in teh scientifc community for them to be entrusted with such a sensitive technology. There are other ways of improving transplant success rates and other medical problems. Cloning is not the answer.
<strong>
I'm aghast at how you show no understanding of other people's objections to these techniques.
I'm not taking sides on this issue but you show a lack on understanding and compassion for other people feelings on this issue.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Then take the quiz, edify me on your reasoning about how not having a baby in #1,#2, & #4 and letting your daughter die in #3 is the morally right thing to do.
Your vague objections seem particularly off the mark when options are available in each case to produce/save a child's life without ever destroying an embryo.
<strong>
Then take the quiz, edify me on your reasoning about how not having a baby in #1,#2, & #4 and letting your daughter die in #3 is the morally right thing to do.
Your vague objections seem particularly off the mark when options are available in each case to produce/save a child's life without ever destroying an embryo.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Before that how about you try to understand that for a great many people in this country what you propose is nothing short of "playing god" and that using embryos for any purpose is killing.
Your unwillingness to understand other people is shocking. You don't even try as far as I can tell.
<strong>If we don't have our ideals to try and live by, in the end what *do* we have?</strong><hr></blockquote>
You have reason.
[quote]<strong>
The word from self-righteous scientists that everything will be OK, just leave the driving to them (you)?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm a scientist and I don't trust scientists. I'm ethically bound not to "trust" scientists. I evaluate data, I repeat experiments, I prove things for myself. It's wise advice for all people in all there pursuits.
[quote]<strong>
Sorry, cloning a human being is something that just doesn't sit right with me. Some ideas carry with them too much negative potential...this is one of them. You honestly think the scientific community at large is ethical enough and objective enough to always do the right thing where cloning is involved?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't think any community - scientific, politcal, or religious satisfies those criteria.
[quote]<strong>
There is far too much greed in teh scientifc community for them to be entrusted with such a sensitive technology. There are other ways of improving transplant success rates and other medical problems. Cloning is not the answer.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sorry, but your going against way to much demonstrated success in life improving technologies to convincingly portray science as a whole as greedy and irresponsible.
All this and you've yet to take the quiz, or even offer a superior governing body for this technology as you seem so convinced that the same enterprise (science) that brought you antibiotics and vaccines is hell bent on deceiving you.
<strong>
Before that [taking the quiz] how about you try to understand that for a great many people in this country what you propose is nothing short of "playing god" and that using embryos for any purpose is killing.</strong><hr></blockquote>
IVF is killing? Using chimp embryos is killing? "Playing God?" I honestly don't know what that is supposed to mean. Epidurals used to be considered against God because they relieved the pain of child-birth which was considered God's sentence for Eve's deception. IVF was considered against God. It would seem that a lot of really good things were once considered under God's domain. But that is a theological discussion and as I said you can feel free to use whatever theological reasoning you want to justify your answers to the quiz (but as an American they hold no wieght in a court of law- try Afghanistan)
[quote]<strong>
Your unwillingness to understand other people is shocking. You don't even try as far as I can tell.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmm, how would won try to understand anothers position? Let's see, maybe one would profer questions to be answered to clarify the opposing sides positions on specific scenarios...
[ 11-26-2001: Message edited by: Nordstrodamus ]</p>
Justify your responses as you like (invoke God if you must, but remember that this is America, not the Taliban and you should be able to provide an objective reason for limiting someone else's freedoms).</strong>
Hmm... the modus operandi of the argument is giving embryonic life full fledged human status. So it's like the abortion argument (except for the petri dish part). If you follow the Papacy, it's when sperm meets egg. Since these clumps of cells are humans, it would be a monstrosity to conceive these embryos and then harvest them, or to grow them and see the inevitable negative side effects. Therefore, it should be declared illegal just like certain sorts of human trials and experimentation is illegal.
I use the motto: if it's in a petri dish, it's a bunch of cells, if it's in a womb, it's life. (Nagging details will be worked out later.)
Gengineering, I'm all for it. It's like astronomy and physics in the gool old days. A lot of people will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new and ever changing world. We're in the throes of evolution changing the fundamentalists' worldview (not to mention all of science sometimes). Gengineering is merely next.
[ 11-26-2001: Message edited by: THT ]</p>
[quote] Why is it so hard for people like you to understand that for other people is it wrong to "create life" just to "end" it for someone else gain. <hr></blockquote>
Mmmm...
Look at the Animal Kingdom...
Livestock...
Veggies...
Insects...
Life feeds off life...
Besides we are not talkin about little humans with arms and legs here... we are talkin about a small group of cells (over a million could fit on a needle -TIP-) that have no present function... they are not leg cells or eye cells, bone cells, blood cells... etc. we are talking about "blank" cells that can be designated to whatever purpose is needed... since they are cloned from the host they are "accepted" and supported by the body as "natural" cells...
you can identify them here in the growth process as Totipotent Cells...
The other possibilities are numerous and varied...
And if someone does want to clone themselves fully...
I dont understand what all the hubbub is all about...
They would have different fingerprints, different personalities, memories...
All humans are more alike than they are different anyway...
As for a complete human clone I would however perfect full primate cloning before I would start full human cloning trials...
E PLURIBUS UNIX
-----------------------------
[ 11-26-2001: Message edited by: FERRO ]</p>
<strong>QED</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't know if this means something else in the lingo of the internet, but in mathmatics it means Quite Easily Done and is used often times at the end of a proof. It would be ironic to use such a term after offering no flow of reasoning whatsoever and avoiding the very questions put to you.
Who else here thinks we won't see one single anti-cloner explain how it's morally justifiable to let their children die to spare the life of a speck of cells a thousand times smaller than a flake of dandruff.
<strong>
I don't know if this means something else in the lingo of the internet, but in mathmatics it means Quite Easily Done</strong><hr></blockquote>
No it doesn't but you were almost right. Good enough for your work I guess.
<strong>Besides we are not talkin about little humans with arms and legs here... we are talkin about a small group of cells</strong><hr></blockquote>
In YOUR opinion. See that's kind of my whole point. Why don't you try to look at from the perspective of the people who are against this stuff. For them it IS life and death. Get it? For you it's research to save lives. For them it's killing human life to save another.
They believe deep down inside that that is the situation. They are not trying to be mean or cause someone to suffer needlessly. They just see a human being where you see a clump of cells to be picked apart.
I'm sure you don't understand nor are willing to understand the view point of the people who oppose this research.
<a href="http://www.eathuman.com"; target="_blank">eathuman.com</a>
[quote]I don't think any community - scientific, politcal, or religious satisfies those criteria. <hr></blockquote>
Right you are Nordstrodamus, right you are. Hence the slippery slope everyone talks about. Once we start down the path it will inevitably lead to serious abuses of the technology, almost surely all of it in the name of big money.
You know it's funny, I saw a woman last night on MSNBC who was bound to a wheelchair (I forget the exact cause) , which she used as an example of something that could eventually be cured if only we'd allow cloning research to go on unimpeded. And then she said something like "our lives our ending one day at a time while the anti-cloning people keep this technology from helping us."
Now, aside from the fact that many scientists and doctors openly admit that even *with* cloning, we are at least a decade away from any resultant "cures" of disease or paralysis - we seem to forget that illness (and by extension, death) is a part of life. It's an inescapable cycle, whether we like it or not, whether we can admit it or not.
Sickness, accidents, injuries...those are things which we will all endure to some degree during the course of our lives. This is part of the human condition, part of nature. It drives me nuts the way some of these protagonists try to sell "the next big thing", as if it will prolong our lives indefinitely or prevent us from suffering. Seems we're trying to become a "no pain" society. Talk about naive undertakings.
I'm all for curing cancer, helping the crippled to walk, and all the rest...but many of us seem to delude ourselves into thinking that drugs and vitamins and surgery can somehow make us immune to the ravages of time. We're all going to die, some of us more peacefully than others, some of us later in life than others. This is just a fact. So often we see these drug commercials using the word "control" in the context of what happens to us in life. Sorry, but we have a lot less control than we'd like to think. It would help us, in the course of these kinds of debates, to acknowledge that fact -- it might give some people needed perspective.
Either way, to portray cloning as the enabling agent for a miraculous band of medicines and physical treatments, based on how little we really know, is just blatantly misleading. We don't really have any clue if it will work or not, yet the proponents spin it like "if we could just be left alone, it would be a done deal." That's simply false.
Maybe it's an over-simplified viewpoint (I don't doubt that *something* good could *one day* come from cloning, if allowed to continue) but until the scientific and medical community can demonstrate that cloning human embryos *will* enable a cure for some very serious conditions (using clones from other species as an example perhaps)...the possible misuses of such a technology far outweight the potential benefits.
BTW, Nord, I will answer your quiz in a separate post.
[ 11-27-2001: Message edited by: Moogs ? ]</p>
<strong>
No it doesn't but you were almost right. Good enough for your work I guess.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmm, your right. It means "quod erat demonstrandum" ("that which was to be demonstrated"). I'll have to ask my mathmatics prof about that. I wonder if that is just the common layman interpretation. Still, even under this interpretation it stands as ironic because you have offered no line of reasoning, nor have you addressed the questions. Instead you wish to continue attacking my lack of understanding.
[quote]
<strong>Why don't you try to look at from the perspective of the people who are against this stuff. For them it IS life and death. Get it? For you it's research to save lives. For them it's killing human life to save another.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I have. In fact, I've gone to great lengths to accomodate there concerns. In every question there is an option to avoid the destruction of fertilized totipotent human embryos. Have you even read the questions?
Question 1:
You and your spouse have fertility problems.
<hr></blockquote>
For the three distinct times we've tried, it worked. Not span of time/trying. So, not an issue for me.
[quote]
Question 2:
<hr></blockquote>
Again, not an issue. I wouldn't do IVF anyway.
[quote]
Question 3:
Let's say you (or your spouse) goes to term this time. You have a beautiful daughter who at the age of 12 is exposed to a toxic agent which requires a transplant with a cloned organ or she will die. The technique involves removing a skin cell from the child and cloning it into a fertilized embryo. Would you allow the lifesaving procedure if:
A. You had to use one of the remaining embryos kept in cold storage- manipulating it to turn directly (not harvested from a cloned person) into the required organ in culture?
B. The frozen embryos were destroyed by mistake and you had to use someone else's extra IVF embryos to clone your daughter's DNA into, but otherwise same as A.
C. You could clone your child's DNA into a fertilized chimp egg (due to the 98.9% similiarity of humans and chimps once your child's nucleus is placed in the embryo the egg becomes fully capable of growing into a full human adult- zero chimp DNA is retained, no chimp qualities passed, and most importantly no human embryos "sacrificed") then turn it into an organ in culture.
D. Same as C, but BEFORE cloning in your child's DNA you alter it's genes so that it can only develop into the required organ and, therefore, never constitutes a real human embryo?
<hr></blockquote>
Would not use embryonic anything.
[quote]
Question 4:
Your daughter get's killed in a car accident at the age of 12 (let's say this happened instead of the toxic incident). Your still young and want another child, but you (or your spouse) can no longer produce eggs (even with IVF)
A. Would you take one of the remaining embryos kept in cold storage to term?
B. Let's say one of the remaining embryos was damaged, but the nucleus was intact. Would you allow that to be cloned into a donated egg presuming the technique is as safe as traditional conception?
C. Same as B, but with a chimp egg (again, no chimp qualities or genes are passed and no human embryos are destroyed, and the technique is proven to be no different in result than "natural" conception)?
Wonder what my answer's to the above questions are? You will probably be able to infer what they are by knowing that my justification in every case is simple- my daughter gets to live. And yet, somehow I'm morally wrong in the eyes of many.
P.S. I'm aware that for question #4 the cloned child is a distinct person from the donor, but nevertheless you do indeed have a living daughter if you answer "yes".
[ 11-26-2001: Message edited by: Nordstrodamus ][/QB]<hr></blockquote>
Would not use embryos for anything at all.
Gosh, though, that is some fine FREE THINKING you got there!!!
Our latest child, by the way, was diagnosed with a fatal defect that was supposed to cause death within minutes after delivery. She is now six months and fat, fat, fat! Not a thing wrong with her. Not her laughs, not her dirty diapers, her screams. Nothing wrong. Had we gone with our highly-intelligent, modern doctor's suggestion of abortion, I would have gotten a little more sleep at night, and missed one more important fixture in my life.
You and your spouse have fertility problems. You go through IVF treatments and the doctors successfully produce one embryo. The odds of implantation with one embryo are 1 in 10 and your out of money. The IVF doc offers to wait for the embryo to divide a little and then split it into two, then four embryos so that you will have four shots at producing a child. Presume this technique is entirely safe (this is, after all how natural twins form). Do you assent or is it God's will (forgetting for a moment that God didn't want you to conceive in the first place) for you to have only one shot at it.<hr></blockquote>
I would consent (not assent), because the embryos in question are of the mother and father?s making (even if the lab helped), and the goal is to produce a child which will develop in the mother?s womb. If it works so be it, if not, the embryo in question was not intentionally created and sacrificed with some other purpose in mind.
Human reproductive cells have only one purpose: to create a new and unique human life?not to create isolated tissues, organs, chemicals or anything else. You can make this argument outside the bounds of religion. Empirically, it is self-evident. Just as red blood cells have a specific and limited number of natural functions, so too do reproductive cells.
To take it upon ourselves to re-define the purpose of such cells ? so that biotech and pharmaceutical companies can make a mint ? is what irks me. They act as if they're crusaders for health, when what they are first and foremst is crusaders for cash. And before you tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, I will let you know I've worked for a large pharmaceutical company in the past and have witnessed many interesting discussions about the FDA drug approvals and such.
[quote]Question 2:
Say the IVF doc implants one of the embryos, but is miscarried in the first trimester due to naturally occurring deformities. Shortly afterward the gene responsible for causing such deformities is found and identified in the three remaining embryos (presume you answered yes to [#1] or it "naturally" divided in the dish). The IVF doc offers to repair the defect in the remaining embryos using genetic recombination and try again. Presume the technique is 100% effective or, much more likely, 100% confirmable before implantation. Do you do it?<hr></blockquote>
Again, yes, because the objective is the same, to use the product of the man and woman?s reproductive cells, to help them bring a child into the world. Again, embryos are not being created and destroyed with some other purpose in mind.
[quote]Let's say [the mother] goes to term this time. You have a beautiful daughter who at the age of 12 is exposed to a toxic agent which requires a transplant with a cloned organ or she will die. The technique involves removing a skin cell from the child and cloning it into a fertilized embryo. Would you allow the lifesaving procedure if:
A. You had to use one of the remaining embryos kept in cold storage- manipulating it to turn directly (not harvested from a cloned person) into the required organ in culture?<hr></blockquote>
No.
And your implication of only one solution makes no sense. Why would an organ taken from a healthy donor of the same age and blood type (say someone who died in a car accident) be any less viable a solution than your ?manufactured? organ?
Further, your scenario is questionable at best (designed to support your point of view, rather than being a realistic example). If a person has been exposed to a toxic agent, to the extent that he/she needs a new liver or kidney (for example), it is quite likely they will need far more treatment (and perhaps transplants) than just one to live a normal life. Hence using your idea, multiple embryos must be created and destroyed (and who knows how many times) simply to create the organs and tissues needed (which by themselves don?t guarantee success).
[quote]B. The frozen embryos were destroyed by mistake and you had to use someone else's extra IVF embryos to clone your daughter's DNA into, but otherwise same as A.<hr></blockquote>
No. Same reasoning as A.
[quote]C. You could clone your child's DNA into a fertilized chimp egg (due to the 98.9% similarity of humans and chimps once your child's nucleus is placed in the embryo the egg becomes fully capable of growing into a full human adult- zero chimp DNA is retained, no chimp qualities passed, and most importantly no human embryos "sacrificed") then turn it into an organ in culture. <hr></blockquote>
Nope. Because for one thing monkey reproductive cells are meant to produce monkeys not humans (again, this has nothing to do with religion. For another, you?re still creating an embryo that has the potential to form a human life, but is destroyed so that it might create something else. Everything in the natural world has a specific purpose and is a part of a specific order?we have no right to disrupt that order.
[quote]D. Same as C, but BEFORE cloning in your child's DNA you alter it's genes so that it can only develop into the required organ and, therefore, never constitutes a real human embryo?<hr></blockquote>
Not sure I understand this part of the question, so I won?t answer it.
[quote]Question 4:
Your daughter gets killed in a car accident at the age of 12 (let's say this happened instead of the toxic incident). Your still young and want another child, but [the mother] can no longer produce eggs (even with IVF).
A. Would you take one of the remaining embryos kept in cold storage to term?<hr></blockquote>
No.
And the fact that you?d ask casts doubt on your own understanding of life. Despite the mantras of Fight Club (great movie) each of us is unique in physical makeup and time. We are here for a short time, we live our lives as only we can, and we die (won?t get into what does or doesn?t happen after that because I don?t know). The point is, there is something very askew about thinking we have the right to re-create a loved one, simply because we didn?t want them to see them die. ?There can be only one? as they say.
This is something that is beyond our ?jurisdiction? ? we don?t have control over such things as when we are born or when we die. They are as they are and that?s it. We must deal with it. Trying to avoid death by creating a carbon copy of the person who died, is naïve in the extreme.
[quote]B. Let's say one of the remaining embryos was damaged, but the nucleus was intact. Would you allow that to be cloned into a donated egg presuming the technique is as safe as traditional conception?<hr></blockquote>
Nope.
[quote]C. Same as B, but with a chimp egg (again, no chimp qualities or genes are passed and no human embryos are destroyed, and the technique is proven to be no different in result than "natural" conception)?<hr></blockquote>
Nope, and what?s more, my daughter wouldn?t want it any other way. How about you? Let?s say you?re 12 years old and YOU die tomorrow. And of course, your or mother or father has the ability to see to it that you are re-created using DNA and cloning technologies, so that they might not suffer so much. Whaddya say? Should there be more than one of you? What if you don?t turn out so well the second time around (make bad decisions and such)?maybe they should disown you and try again with another clone?
[quote]Wonder what my answer's to the above questions are?<hr></blockquote>
Not to be rude, but at this point, not only do I not know?I don?t care.
[ 11-27-2001: Message edited by: Moogs ? ]</p>
As for your contention that we as a people are to greedy for a healthy, longer life I must simply submit that this is a personal decision and I have no problem with mentally-capable adults deciding to deny blood transfusions, transplants, anti-biotics or whatever life extending technologies they consider wrong so long as they do not presume to enforce their opinion over others.
[quote]Originally posted by Moogs ?:
<strong>
Now, aside from the fact that many scientists and doctors openly admit that even *with* cloning, we are at least a decade away from any resultant "cures"...
</strong><hr></blockquote>
The pace of science is unpredictable and it is entirely possible that more simple applications (cloned blood lines instead of organs) could be only a year away as several promising demonstrations have already been done in mice. The distance away is irrelevant, however, because it is the speed which is important. If cures do eventually result then whatever time was wasted due to legislation slowing the research results in lives lost where they could have been saved.
[QUOTE]<strong>
Either way, to portray cloning as the enabling agent for a miraculous band of medicines and physical treatments, based on how little we really know, is just blatantly misleading. We don't really have any clue if it will work or not....
</strong>
One of the reasons you hear the word "promise" being used with regards to cloning is that provided we can make genetically identical cells and convert them into different tissue types (this part has already been demonstrated) there are most definately life savings applications. Their is absolutely no research that suggests that this cannot be a viable life saving technology.
[QUOTE]<strong>
I don't doubt that *something* good could *one day* come from cloning, if allowed to continue) but until the scientific and medical community can demonstrate that cloning human embryos *will* enable a cure for some very serious conditions (using clones from other species as an example perhaps)
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There have been many demonstrations of repairing damage to spinal cords and alleviating hereditary diseases in mice. I'm not sure what your threshold is, but I believe it most likely has been met.
[ 11-27-2001: Message edited by: Nordstrodamus ]</p>
[quote] In YOUR opinion. See that's kind of my whole point. Why don't you try to look at from the perspective of the people who are against this stuff. For them it IS life and death. Get it? For you it's research to save lives. For them it's killing human life to save another.
They believe deep down inside that that is the situation. They are not trying to be mean or cause someone to suffer needlessly. They just see a human being where you see a clump of cells to be picked apart.
I'm sure you don't understand nor are willing to understand the view point of the people who oppose this research. <hr></blockquote>
I had about five good paragraphs with witty retorts and some very good points... but I erased it becuase I knew you would just tell me "I'm sure you don't understand nor are willing to understand the view point of the people who oppose this research." no matter what I had written...
And "We" are unwilling to understand someones viewpoint...???
It would seem that you accuse everyone who supports cloning of "unwillingness to understand the oppositions viewpoint", yet seem to have remained neutral on the subject yourself... what side are you on...???
The very same fight occured with the flourishen of innoculations and vaccines...
Many people thought it was wrong, they believed it was playing god... Many people still believe that blood transfusions are "playing god" and will refuse just aboout everything that could help them... And thats their oppinion... And I respect that... becuase it doesnt push their oppinion/beliefs unto me... If someone wants to clone some cells from their body to manufacture some "body part" they need to live... clone away... its their cells.. their oppinion... why cant you respect that...??? People who refuse to use blood transfusions are respected... the same should be expected for people who wish to use a technique to grow body parts from from their own cells...
Are you just neutral troll...
Everybody has an oppinion... Some people believe in the tooth fairy, santa clause, bigfoot, lockness monster, various religions... all without any scientific evidence... they just belive... Just becuase alot of people believe something, that does not validate that belief...
E PLURIBUS UNIX
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