Cloning

[Locke]

What are some of your opinions on cloning?

-Locke

[Fraser]

Aren't there already clones walking around right now? I think we call them twins. They seem alright to me.

[Locke]

I don't think so. They have cloned humans, but like humans, they come out as babies. And they are too new to be "walking around" already. Infact, they are human, just a genetic copy. They seem to have some health problems. But the first clonings on animals had severe health problems. Many people see them as a medial tool, for different organs, blood, ect. But they are humans like us. The same complex mind, the same deep emotions. It's wrong, in my opinion, to believe they are lower that us. I want to know your opinions on their rights as humans, not thir existence. Thanks for any opinions, they will be of great help.

Locke

[DippyHippy]

I find the idea of cloning humans for organ transplants abhorrent, like farming humans, but then I'm not in need of a heart or a liver transplant.

Dear Mr Bush was very against using the cells of unborn babies for medical research until Ronnie Reagan got Alzheimer's... one nod from Nancy and the Republican party sang a different tune.

Who's to say something similar won't happen again with cloning?

Dips

[imported_Draco]

I did an oral about Cloning for English, i was for it and got an A- for it so i guess it was pretty good!
I'll post it here if you want to have a quick read through it...
I never actually liked it that much, my oral

Nearly every month, there’s news of how cloning technology is set to change our lives. From agriculture to medicine to human cloning. Cloning is a beneficial and technological aspect that is poised to change the human race and technology, either now or in the near future. By now you are aware that I support cloning.

You all have probably asked yourself a number of times, why Clone? Yes why should we clone? There is a vast range of reasons. It is believed that cloning can cure the many horrific diseases that plague our planet, the types of diseases that infest themselves amongst our bodies, and slowly and painfully kill us. Imagine the agony if one of us was exposed to the terrible cancerous disease. Instead of sending our men to war, who all have loving families, we could create a cloned army to fight for us. There could be an infinite supply of soldiers defending our country. What if, one day you may need a replacement organ? If all aspects of cloning become a global ban, then this will not be possible as finding the proper organ for you may be difficult.

There are many ways in which human cloning can benefit mankind. Infertile couples may be able to have children. It may be possible to clone livers, for liver transplants, which can benefit those with liver failure. Those unfortunate people who suffer from leukaemia may be treated, as it may be able to clone the bone marrow for children and adults who suffer from the dreadful disease. This is expected to be one of the very first benefits that cloning will bring. Cloning technology may be used to test for genetic disease and possibly cure them. Should another child die from leukaemia? Should another family have to live through the trauma of loosing a loved one? If the technology exists, why not use it? There are other benefits that are barely yet imagined.

As you can see here, these are some of the possible uses of human cloning. These are only some “case scenarios.” Case 2. Parents who wish to replace a child. A couple loses their only daughter to a severe infectious disease when she is 15. They can still reproduce, but would like to have a child as similar to their deceased daughter as possible. After intensive counselling and grief therapy, they decide to try to recreate their daughter, using a frozen stored cell. If ever a situation such as this becomes a reality, then this would be the most beneficial way to resolve it.

Why is it that religious groups oppose cloning? The reason why they do so is because they are still living in the past. They do not want us to meddle with nature. They opposed IVF, and look at it now, it has become widely used by scientists. We cannot ban cloning just because religious groups do not approve of it. You can then say good-bye to the next generation of medical research.

During the middles ages when the Catholic Church opposed experiments on humans, there was little knowledge of how the body worked and insufficient knowledge on medical science. This is how the Black Death became an epidemic. People were not allowed to experiment on humans, they were not allowed to do what many scientists are eager to do now. Experiment with new things. Advance in technology. We cannot live in a world where diseases such as, AIDS, Cancer or Parkinson’s disease still lurk in the shadows. We must learn from our past experiences and not make the same mistake we did all those years ago. Our medical research would be very slow if cloning was banned.

If cloning were to be banned, then we would be depriving the world of cures for incurable diseases. Such as, AIDS, the deadly types of Cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Fanconi’s anaemia and many others that are still at large. Cloning does not have to be used for medical purposes; it can be used to genetically modify foods. These foods could then be made to contain vitamins that don’t disappear in the cooking process or to include a range of vitamins to help balance our diet. We are becoming unhealthier as a nation due to poor diet and eating habits and this could help to maintain a balance.

Scientists believe that it may be possible to reverse the aging process because of what we learn from cloning. It is believed by some scientists that they may be able to treat heart attack victims by cloning their healthy heart cells and injecting them into the parts of the damaged heart.

Professor Peter Singer, who has been known as the “most influential philosopher alive” once said, “We go to so much effort to shape our children’s environment to give them the best possible start in life that once we gain the ability to select their genes we are unlikely to reject it.” Also Italian scientist, Serverino Antinori, sees cloning as overcoming “the last frontier for male sterility.”

If we have the technology and power to clone, then why not use this to its capacity?
We must experiment with different kinds of technology in order to gain an understanding of how it can change the world or our lives. In order to exceed in technology, we must experiment with cloning in depth, so we can grasp a firm knowledge of how to further change the world in which we live in. If we continue our research in cloning, if it can cure diseases or feed starving people, would it not be morally wrong not to pursue it?

[KB3HTS]

I don't think there's much wrong with cloning itself, there's just a problem with getting there if you want to do it for humans. Dolly had to be put to sleep because of premature artheritis and most likely any human who will be cloned will also have problems (effects by society nonwithstanding). And no one would want a person to suffer unneccesarily.
The problem is, of course, you are eventually going to have someone who doesn't care about the quality of life of the clone and will go ahead with the project. And you don't want that person in charge of cloning!

[Locke]

Draco, I agree with you in that we could grow single organs for medical reasons, but cloning an entire human just to take their organs is murder. I am discusted with the thought of using clones as items in war. That is completly iniquitous, and I shudder from the thought. No one can put a price on life, and using a clone, wich yes, is just like a human (and infact is human), is a very licentious idea. I agree with creating clones and giving them human rights, but they are not items.

-Locke

[DippyHippy]

Draco, that's a very interesting piece you've written... a few points to consider...

1) Your cloned army... what happens with regards to their basic, human rights? If we deny them, they could (most likely would) rebel. Then you've got a real life Clone War on your hands.

2) Where's the food going to come from to feed the clones? We've got nearly 7 billion on the planet already... please, no more! Earth is fully booked!

3) Disease... I might be wrong, but it's my understanding that you'll never eradicate disease completely, but rather new ones will emerge to replace those you've defeated. That's (partly) why there's this theory about Gaia, the idea that the Earth as a whole is a living organism. Disease is thought to be a natural part of the Earth's biosystem.

4) Children... I don't know, if I weren't able to have a child, I wouldn't clone... it wouldn't be my child, it would just be a carbon copy of either me or my wife. God, one of me's bad enough LOL

5) Cloning cells for medical purposes... I agree with this. I just don't like the idea of cloning entire people...

6) Child replacement? Nooooo... not for me... I couldn't handle that. Every time I looked into my replacement child's eyes, I'd think of the child I lost. And the new child just wouldn't be the same...

7) Religion... I'm not religious... but it's been my understanding that religious groups are opposed to cloning on the basic grounds that only God is allowed to create life. Natural reproduction is one thing because people believe God blesses a couple with a child, but for people to create a child is another matter - it's like saying we don't need God and we certainly don't need His blessing.

8) Genetically modified foods are being rejected worldwide which is why farmers in Canada are broke. They were told that GM crops would produce far greater yields and therefore the money would come pouring in, but people have rejected GM produce as "frankenstein foods" and for whatever reason, (I honestly can't remember) there's some reason why the Canadian farmers can't go back to growing normal crops. (I think the soil has been changed somehow, but don't quote me on that)

I'm not against cloning per se, I just believe there should be limits to what we clone and the reasons for the cloning. Cells and organs for medical research, transplants and cancer relief, yes... cloning humans as a whole for whatever purpose, no... not really on ethical grounds, but more in fear of the consequences I've listed above.

Dips

[Locke]

I agree with DippyHippy. There's not nearly enough recources to compensate for an entire "Clone Army". And as I said before, they are humans, not things.

-Locke

[imported_Draco]

Thanks dippyhippy!
I didn't agree with some of the points myself in my oral, like cloning humans, but i found being for it was easier, coz there were a lot of things that i could say.

Yeah we don't want a cloned war against the human race lol
Your point in 4 was funny We don't want another one of us around this place hehehehehe
The point in 6, yeah somebody said that who was against cloning.
Thanks for your points! If i was doing this again, i could learn off what you said

[eggplant]

And with the advent of human clonig will come the attempt to perfect the genome... better the human race... that&#39;s what scares me about it, forget making cloned morons for the military, <blink, blink> It is the improvements that are proving to be dangerous... The current models (natural flora and fauna) have developed through thousands of generations to live how they live. We should be more careful about improving upon it. Because it seems making one thing better makes it worse for several others... A stickey whicket. Since it is bound to continue, and will have tremendous medical impact in the near future we should pay attention.

[DippyHippy]

Draco, you&#39;re welcome... they were just some points that occured to me as I read your words.

eggplant, yes, exactly. And GM food is one thing - GM humans is something else. Puts me in mind of the Borg out of Star Trek except I believe that any civilisation advanced enough to do that would do so biologically rather than technologically. A scary thought.

Dips

[all_isone]

[/QUOTE] Oct. 8 — A group of scientists, doctors and legal experts asked the United Nations Wednesday to seek an advisory opinion from the World Court declaring human cloning to be a “crime against humanity.”
“The World Court is the ultimate authority on international law, and an opinion from the court would bring a very strong legal and moral force to bear against the would-be cloners,” said attorney Bernard Siegel of Coral Gables, Florida, who organized the initiative.
Siegel sued Clonaid, a firm linked to the Raelian movement that believes extraterrestrials created humankind, after it claimed in December to have cloned the first human baby.
Scientists have since poured doubt on that claim, although Clonaid now says it has cloned five humans.
Siegel said his group had written U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to ask that the 191-nation General Assembly request the advisory opinion from the World Court, which is based in The Hague in the Netherlands and is formally known as the International Court of Justice [/QUOTE]

[all_isone]

getting a bit more scary here :

New York Times Ads Offer Designer Babies
Austin Ruse
Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2003
Over the past few months, the New York Times has repeatedly printed advertisements for the Genetics and IVF Institute (GIVF), a Virginia-based clinic that promises parents the ability to choose the sex of their babies. This marks the first time that a eugenics procedure has been marketed openly in a mainstream American publication.

GIVF claims that its sperm-sorting sex-selection technique, called Microsort, is currently offered for two reasons, as a method of "balancing" the composition of a family&#39;s offspring, as well as to avoid conceiving babies with gender-linked diseases. GIVF charges &#036;2,300 for its services.

However, some observers worry that the advertisements signal an increasingly widespread acceptance of eugenics, of efforts to improve the human race through breeding and genetic manipulation. In this regard, GIVF&#39;s Web site also allows customers to shop for human eggs based upon race, eye and hair color, and education level of the donors, raising the prospect of a future of "designer babies."

In the United Kingdom, there have been recent reports that women carrying babies with Down syndrome, or even surgically correctable defects, have been pressured by public health service doctors to abort their babies for the greater good of society.

Bill Albert, of the Council of Disabled People, has said that we need to "face up to what&#39;s going on and not say this is about choice, this is about elimination. You&#39;re talking about eradicating a whole section of the population – it&#39;s state-sanctified eugenics." h34r:

Some prominent scientists explicitly support eugenics-based sex selection and abortion of disabled individuals, as well as the redesigning of the human race. The Nobel laureate James Watson has said that "If we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn&#39;t we? What&#39;s wrong with it?"

Lester Thurow, Professor of Economics and Management at M.I.T., agrees, saying, "Biotechnology is inevitably leading to a world in which human beings are going to be partly man-made. Suppose parents could add 30 points to their children&#39;s IQ. Wouldn&#39;t you want to do it? And if you don&#39;t, your child will be the stupidest child in the neighborhood." (scarry marketing here ....)

Perhaps most troubling, Richard Lynn, a professor at the University of Ulster, has spoken in an interview about "phasing out" "incompetent" people, :blink: saying, "Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent." In addition, he says that "genetic improvement is likely to evolve spontaneously through the technique of embryo selection in which women will use IVF to grow a number of embryos, have them genetically assessed and will select for implantation those with genetically desirable qualities."

Even the long-discredited racial theories behind much of 20th century support for eugenics appear to be enjoying a resurgence. In a 2002 journal article, Lynn says that he "presents new evidence showing conclusively for the first time that lighter skinned blacks have higher IQs than darker skinned blacks. This supports the theory that the proportion of white ancestry is a determinant of the intelligence of African Americans." :blink: :blink:
Lynn also states: "In 1991 I extended my work on race differences in intelligence to other races. I concluded that the average IQ of blacks in sub-Saharan Africa is approximately 70. It has long been known that the average IQ of blacks in the United States is approximately 85. The explanation for the higher IQ of American blacks is that they have about 25 per cent of Caucasian genes and a better environment." :angry:
Copyright Culture of Life Foundation. Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

[eggplant]

Ouch...
where will clones go on mothers day? :blink:

[Haglund]

Clones exist already today. That said, I wonder what benefit there would be from cloning? Why would we need to clone a human being? Is there a shortage of people? Joke aside, cloning could be used to produce new organs, but the ideas I have read about was that one would make them without heads, and so it would be ok to take the organs. I wonder if it wouldn&#39;t be better to develop techniques to grow organs other ways instead. Less morbid, if anything... And why would clones not have human rights? They&#39;re human, aren&#39;t they?

[DippyHippy]

The idea of cloning a human without a head horrifies me... that&#39;s doing something I mentioned a few posts back - harvesting humans. It makes me think of the machines in the Matrix hooking humans up to use them as Energiser batteries.

[CyberJIT]

Finally you&#39;ve entered my realm. I&#39;m a doctor studying molecular medicine, so now it&#39;s my turn to clarify some points. (Again, english is not my main language)

When you claim that there already are human clones in this world (and you are not talking about twins) I get the same gut feeling that astronomy and physics enthusiasts get when someone says faster than light travel is possible. I wish it were true (at a scientist level, not a personal one), but I&#39;m pretty sure it&#39;s not.

About our worst fears: human war drones, human organ farms, etc. etc. It&#39;s possible, and as we all know there would be a market for it, it would be done. But besides working within the honor system, geneticists are being bound by more and more laws that say it can&#39;t be done. Yes, even I am rolling my eyes as I write this, but as every achievement that has been made in human history, we can&#39;t even pretend to stop it because someone would make some awful use of it. All we can do it&#39;s be aware of it&#39;s perils and try to avoid them. Besides we all know that it would serve best to the machine in the Matrix to just grind the humans and use their chemicals as energy

About frases around the topic "Attack of the clones" and such, you&#39;ve dealt with it in astronomy and physics. You have read articles about Galileo turning Jupiter into a sun, FTL travel, time travel, black planet, X planet, the moon hoax. Heck&#33; I&#39;ve believed some of them. I even believe that aliens and FTL and time travel are possible. But you know better than me. And that&#39;s because you can separate fact from popular belief. Again, I&#39;m not saying that it won&#39;t possible some day to do some of those dreaded experiments, I don&#39;t even say that there won&#39;t be a mad scientist that will try them, I just say that before we claim that there are cloned babies just because we saw in the news bald guy and a weird looking lady with a flying saucer behind them saying that they&#39;ve cloned a baby, we should check the facts first.

About humans without heads or organ farms: all I can say is that we could get to cloning individual organs without going in that direction. We know more and more aboutt cell differentiation and tissue forming every day. I can&#39;t even say that it will be done by this decade, I don&#39;t know that, but it&#39;s possible to replace people&#39;s organs without turning into doctor Frakenstein.

Stem Cells: Sure, they can only be made from unused embryos, but I&#39;m glad to inform you that&#39;s about to change quickly. They&#39;re being prepared from tissues like baby teeth&#39;s pulp (that tooth fairy really knew what she was doing :P ). They&#39;re then cultured and used as cement mix to fix and replace anything in our bodies. When we know how to direct them, we will be able to build those tissues and organs I mention above.

Designer babies: Again, possible, but controlable. Any doctor should know his or hers "therapeutic limits". Sure, we should cure Parkinson&#39;s disease, avoid congenital diseases, even make ourselves more invulnerable to infections. But, should we "cure" brown eyes into blue eyes? I know I won&#39;t. That&#39;s where I like that american phrase: "If it ain&#39;t broken, don&#39;t fix it". Besides laws about human cloning we should be considering this.

Cure all diseases? Today it&#39;s a myth. Tomorrow... First, germs aren&#39;t smarter than us, but there are more, and in nature cuantity and variety have more importance in survival. Second, we could cure all kinds of cancer, as different as they are from each other, because we are getting to know common factors that make them what they are: cells that won&#39;t play as a team with our bodies. That will take some time, though. Even so, today&#39;s one by one approach seems to be showing promising results. Third, some mental diseases are caused by some neurotransmitter or brain pathway gone wrong because of bad genes, or can be cured at a organic, molecular level, but not all of them. Freud was on to something. Fourth, and I know that this isn&#39;t a disease, but I can&#39;t think of any gene that we could modify to prevent us from dying if a balcony falls on our heads. Maybe there is one (thicker cranium). That&#39;s how I know that genetics won&#39;t leave any doctor without a job.

Genetic discrimination: I&#39;ll pass this one to law and insurance specialists, because that&#39;s where the war will be fought. Reading our genes today we can say that even races aren&#39;t real, that race is some color change in your skin and that groups people of different colors have more genes in common than groups of people of the same color (mind blowing, isn&#39;t it?). Even that PC trivia fact won&#39;t stop anyone who wants to legally, comercially or socially discriminate others because instead of A it says C at some point of their gene code, whatever that causes. Unless our laws say they can&#39;t. Eugenics existed even before we even knew what genes were. It&#39;s an idea (a bad one) not a technique. So we have to fight it like we would fight any racist, violent or simply wrong idea. First with education, then with law.

Human replacement: here I agree with everything that&#39;s been said against it in this forum, at moral, ethic and technical levels. To this day, I haven&#39;t heard or red a single piece of information that convinces me that replacing one human being with another with the same genome would do anything but harm. Mortality is an essential part of humanity, and we should learn that at some point we&#39;re all going to die. Some sooner that their natural time, but a clone will never fix that.
On a lighter note, these clones would call mother or father to the man or woman that provided their genes, assuming there were both a man and a woman.

GM food: there&#39;s been controversy about wether this food can be dangerous for you and the environment or not. I&#39;ll tell you this: these products are tested more than anything that you&#39;ve ever consumed. It&#39;s like drugs. Sure, the pharmaceutical industry will try to sell drugs that won&#39;t be entirely safe for everyone, but we should control that and not try to stop the entire drug making process. When a farmer grafts a plant into another he or she mixes a lot of genes, and puts it in the soil. When they do it at a GM laboratory, they change one or two genes and test it to exhaustion before putting it to use. For people&#39;s assurance they could put warning labels in GM food packages, but that would send the message that, like cigars and fatty foods, it&#39;s proven to make you sick, and it&#39;s not. Even if the changed protein interacted in a harmful way with one individual in a million (and I understand the fact that to that person and family it would mean the world), like a drug that&#39;s considered "safe", it doesn&#39;t compare with the benefits that those modifications would bring. There are already vaccines being put into tomatoes, and we all know those crops that are more endurable without the use of pesticides, to mention two kind of benefits.

I hope I didn&#39;t leave any topic behind :wacko: . If you have any questions, I&#39;ll try to answer them, and if I can&#39;t I&#39;ll ask my proffesors or research them.

Bye. Chau.

[DippyHippy]

Cyber, thank you - I&#39;ve read your post with a lot of interest - it&#39;s been very educational (And I think your English is fine )

I&#39;ll need a little time to think about what you&#39;ve said before I can come up with any further thoughts or questions...

[QJones]

There&#39;s a big moral difference from cloning a full-term baby and cloning a new liver from one of your skin cells.

But the technologies would be very similar.

I am 100% supportive of stem cell research. As long as the scientists are not growing babies (i.e., just growing cells), I fully support the efforts. Morally and financially.

[trekgoddess]

There is a thin line between using science to help humanity or even using science to "improve" on nature and using science to create immoral things. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions", right? Science and technology have created beautiful, woderful, even incredable things such as penicillin and computers (which happens to be keeping me company right now), but it also has a darker, deeper side the side that drive artisticly scientific men crazy (nuclear, atomic bomb ringing any bells). Cloning could help humans in mavolous ways, but what happens when we start to create humans with low mentality high loyalty qualities? We will deny the basic rights of these "scienific inventions"? Will they revolt if we do? How can we know what science/politics (one deadly combination) will do?

[QJones]

My Ph.D. work will eventually involve cloning neural stem cells. Essentially, I hope to take normal cells and coerce them to become young, pliable brain cells (essentially circumventing the problem of regrowing nerve cells). Cloning technologies will be essential to this really important work (preventing senility and brain aging).

Cloning a "sub-human" is a sci-fi myth. First off, it would take 18 (or so) years to get a viable person (of working age). That&#39;s a heck of an investment, time and money-wise. Never mind the education costs.

It&#39;s common for people to think that "cloning" = "people". But it really doesn&#39;t. Cloning really = stem cells. Stem cells have the potential to become any cell in the body.

I understand your nervousness about lack of ethics. Heck, I just watched a documentary about WWII prisoner experimentation. And I agree that cloning a person would be highly unethical - clones would suffer a reduced quality of life vs. a natural-born baby. But please remember that cloning isn&#39;t really what we see in the movies.

[Matthew]

I agree with cloning stem cells, but couldn&#39;t that same technology clone whole humans as well?

[trekgoddess]

Right now cloning is at a infantile state if you look at it from a sci-fi point of view, but in looking at the evolution of cloningit helps to consider what sci-fi talks about.

[all_isone]

here something on topic from today - bbc world

&#39;Bio-scaffolds&#39; spark organ hope

The scaffold became clogged with cell growth
Human cells have been grown on tiny frames - raising hopes that it may be possible to create whole organs for transplant.
The microscopic "scaffolds" - made in the US - release chemicals which help produce various cell types.

Scientists say it will still be many years before whole new organs can be "grown to order" in a laboratory.

However, the 3D tissue samples produced could help doctors study how diseases progress and spread through the body.

The key advance made by the research team, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is to prompt human "stem cells" to develop into different cell types, such as cartilage, liver, nerve and blood vessel. "Stem cells" are found in the human embryo, and have the ability to become every different cell type in the body, given the right conditions.

The idea is that the cells grow into the required structure, creating their own "matrix" to support themselves, as well as a blood supply to keep themselves alive.

Disappearing frame

To achieve this, the polymer "frame" on which they are grown is designed to degrade at the right point so it does not get in the way.

The MIT scaffold was actually built from two different types of material, one designed to disappear quickly, and another to provide lasting support.

When the tissue structures they had created were implanted into mice, they continued to thrive, and actually integrated with the blood vessel networks in the animals.

Dr Shulamit Levenberg, one of the authors of the research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said: "When you give cells a three-dimensional structure on which to grow, it&#39;s really a lot more like what&#39;s happening in the embryo."

The cells were exposed to chemical "growth factors", which helped prompt them to grow and to become different types of human cell.

Huge task

Many different research teams around the world are working on ways to encourage their cells to grow in three dimensions rather than just two.

When you give cells a three-dimensional structure on which to grow, it&#39;s really a lot more like what&#39;s happening in the embryo

Dr Shulamit Levenberg, MIT
Dr Ying Yang, from Keele University, said that the various factors involved were highly complex - and that it would be some time before scientists could recreate the exact conditions which accompany growth of new tissues within the body.

She said: "What we know is that cells grown on our three-dimensional structures are currently not the same as those which grow naturally in the body."
She said that a variety of factors - the number and type of growth factor chemicals used, their concentration, and the timing of their application - could all be subtly adjusted in order to find the right combination.

Her own research involves placing the developing structure under a mechanical force to produce a more life-like structure.

She said: "Our research has already shown that structures built under mechanical force produce better proteins."

She agreed that the growing of replacement organs for transplantation was some distance away.

[QJones]

Originally posted by matthew@Oct 18 2003, 08:01 AM
I agree with cloning stem cells, but couldn&#39;t that same technology clone whole humans as well?

Cloning stems cells is a similar technology to cloning a person - mostly.

The embryonic stem cells, after being generated, are put into a hormone bath - these hormones are manipulated by the experimenters (with the eventual goal of being able to produce organs - at least for some research, or at least specific cells)

Cloning a person requires implanting the embryonic stem cell into a womb, and the magic of nature does the rest. Theoretically, we could manipulate the hormones in a bath to do the same thing, but frankly the body is WAY better at it.

The technology to bring a person to maturity, outside of a womb, is much (MUCH) too advanced for today. I can&#39;t see it occuring within 40 years, even with full funding.

I personally disagree with cloning a person (either inside a womb or in a vat) because we know that the genetic strength of a clone is weaker than a normal baby. I suffer from genetic defects (color blind) and I know a person with Down Syndrome. I certainly think it would be wrong to intentionally create something that will suffer below the human par. Especially if you had the choice before fusing the DNA with the egg.

If you think about it though, any moron can make a disadvantaged baby. They don&#39;t need a Ph.D., or massive grant funding. They just need to feed the mother lots of alcohol or drugs.

To me, the benefits of cloning research WAY outway the downsides. Especially considering that people are already making disadvantaged babies (the fear that people have of cloning).

[jkmccrann]

I find the idea of cloning humans for organ transplants abhorrent, like farming humans, but then I'm not in need of a heart or a liver transplant.

Dear Mr Bush was very against using the cells of unborn babies for medical research until Ronnie Reagan got Alzheimer's... one nod from Nancy and the Republican party sang a different tune.

Who's to say something similar won't happen again with cloning?

Dips

Given what you said here Dippy, I take it you didn't see the movie The Island?

In any case, I think you are 100% correct, fully cloning humans to merely use them as organ repositories would be a disgrace, and I think the movie (although quite rightly panned - it was bland and pretty boring), did at least introduce that possibility to the minds of some people, so it served some purpose.

Although I would be against `clone farming', I think stem cells are a very interesting phenomena in all their glory and think the stance taken in the United States in relation to stem cells is most unfortunate. Its inevitably only going to push the most exciting and cutting-edge research offshore, to places like South Korea that don't have such qualms.

I think it's a mistake and would hope at some point in the near future it's reversed frankly.

[TheBlackCat]

How could he possibly have seen "The Island" when he made that post? The island was released this year, that post is over two years old!

[jkmccrann]

How could he possibly have seen "The Island" when he made that post? The island was released this year, that post is over two years old!

I realise that, I was stating the question in terms of given that you held those views some time ago I would expect you would not have seen The Island.

Unless perhaps your principles have changed since then. Is 2 years long enough to experience a conversion and change of beliefs in terms of something like that? If for someone it is long enough, I'd find it very interesting to know why someone's beliefs evolved and what did it for them to decide their previous views were wrong.

[jkmccrann]

Ok, since you're here now BlackCat, its probably more pertinent to address that question to you.

Have you seen The Island? And if you have seen it, did it strengthen your views on cloning or did it modify them in someway?

I think I said this above, but I agreed with the premise of the film in that cloning for parts is completely wrong and immoral.