human cloning

[miriam_e]

You know, I can't figure out what the big deal is about human cloning. People get their knickers in such a knot about it, but every identical twin on the planet is a clone. It is not like it is unnatural.

"But," those shiny-eyed, anti-cloning fanatics rush to tell me (like it matters) "there will be awful hitler-like people who clone themselves."

Really? I wonder. And some feeble law is going to stop some uber-wealthy nutcase? Like it has stopped so many other things, yeah?

"But," they breathlessly press on, "it would be a travesty of human rights to have these clones raised to be..."

...to be wealthy, powerful people? Oh the poor dears. My heart bleeds for them.
Why the hell are people worried about cloning when there are children starving all over the world?
Are people fucking nuts or something?!?!

Comments

Clone Logistics

[exileinparadise.livejournal.com]

I am personally not opposed to cloning, especially for medical reasons. If I could get a clone of my own heart, for use as an unclogged replacement, that would be spiffy... and in the end I think people's quest for immortality will eventually win out.

Without memory cloning, the medical uses are about as far as cloning will ever go. So lets assume a 100% accurate clone is possible.

The real problems with cloning, for me, come in all the other areas around adding another human to the mix: do they also get your legal identity? what about inheritance if you die? what if they are the ones to kill you? etc etc etc.

Lawmakers haven't even figured out the right laws to apply to having ONE copy of a human. Every law would have to be re-examined and overhauled if two of a specific person exist.

This is different from twins who are born seperately with different initial identities, compared to someone who is *splitting* their own identity legally later in life. Someone getting a sex-change is only the barest start on the problems that cloning would create in this sort of area.

How about political problems: Imagine an infinite line of Bush clones ruling America forever into the future...

Religious problems: At what point in the cloning process would the soul be installed? (yes I am skipping the God's eminent domain human creation issue here).

How about exotic situations: what if your clone got a sex change... and you wanted to married your cloned self?

What about clone-improvement modifications?
How about a clone with the option to flip gender?
How to deal with the use of cloning as a form of immortality?
Use of clones from generation to generation?

It's a mess when humans start undergoing amoeba-like division.

Re: Clone Logistics

[jrosestar.livejournal.com]

I wrote my response before I read yours. But I think we had some of the same points.

Re: Clone Logistics

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think most of these problems will never come up, but it is important to think about them rather than simply sweep them under the carpet as society is currently doing. Also I think most of these problems are a lot easier to answer than they may seem at first blush:

Immortality through cloning is unlikely to ever be a possibility. Recent improvements in technology have shown that about half of the population have "pre-cancerous" cell groups in their bodies. If given longer lifespans these may well become a problem. We may be able to stave these off by continually replacing parts, but I doubt this will be the route chosen.

Identity is pretty clearly linked to an individual. Clones would have separate identities.

Inheritance is a good one. I expect there will be contesting of inheritances in the future because of that. :)

A clone doesn't "split" identity. The clone will almost certainly be a baby while their genetic source is older. One has life experiences, while the other is new and will grow up to be a totally different person. The older one could be a psychopath and the cloned one a well-rounded, compassionate human due to the different life experiences. They are different identities.

Clone improvement modifications? That is one area that I think might develop, and I'm all for it. The only question then becomes what is an improvement and what isn't? But that is a more general question and doesn't relate to just cloning. Hitler wanted to exterminate all manner of people to "improve" the human race. People with the genetic "disease" sickle cell anemia are will die in their twenties or thirties, but they are in large numbers around the tropics because it gives you complete immunity to malaria, so is it really an illness? There are many so called "illnesses" that are like this: they confer subtle advantages.

The question of megalomaniacs cloning themselves ad infinitum is really irrelevant to the law because no law will alter their behavior anyway, and it would fail after the first generation when a clone came to despise the original. (That would be the very first generation in Bush's case.)

Who would care if someone married their clone? Of course all the religious people would be up in arms, but that is just because they are obsessed with telling other people how to live, which in my view is one of the most prevalent forms of immorality in the world today.

Who cares if a clone could flip gender or had shark teeth or twice the brain capacity, or stronger bones, or enhanced muscles? That would simply widen the human genetic pool. It is something we could do well to have more of, because we have murdered all our nearest relatives so effectively in the past we have almost no genetic variability. That is dangerous. Diversity makes survival more likely. Purity equals stagnation and death.

As I say most of these things are not really a problem. People just think they are. Really if you step back from it, the problem usually just comes down to xenophobia.