The Cloning Issue Should cloning be used to create the perfect human?

[illini319 0]

Define perfect! even perfect beauty has changed throughout the years... By this alone, the topic to this question is lost. morality and ethics, while absolutely necessary to have as a scientist, should not be left to scientists when it comes to questions of this magnitude. society must weigh these lofty ideas and vote for it. so, as much as I am all for cloning and the benefits of stem cell research... I am but one vote.

[Logan Deathbringer 0]

To clone or not to clone? Well this seems more of a philosophical debate then a actual discussion about whether its moral or ethical to clone a human being. Well the ability to do something doesn't necessarily mean you should, but that is a question best served by ones prodginy and the years that follow the decsion to allow human cloning and the fallout of that decision.The best corrilation I can draw, in my opion to allowing cloning is the wide spread use of antibiotics. While their use has helped millions to live and servive what once would have been deadly desies it has lead to, some might say, over population as well as the advent of the super bug, i.e. antibiotic resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae.The major problem I see with Cloning is the unnatural continuation of human life. Humans are only ment to live for a set number of years, as we push the medical barriers back and allow ourselves to live longer and longer we are putting more of a strain on our planets limited resources. If we start cloning ourselves and continue to enlarge our population through normal conseption means our ability to feed our population will continue to get harder and harder.Also the ability to clone a human, while in and of itself is a problem unto itself what about the ability to transfer the memories of the original to the new body. Cloning only allows the new "product" to look like the original, without its original memories and experiances it might look like the first but it won't act like the first. Without the ability to transfer the memories and experiances across then all is for not.The biggest question that I see coming up in this whole ordeal is the one that I have seen posed by the religious side of our civilization, will the clone have a soul. Now that is a questions that I don't see any easy or final answer to. So that is how I see the issue in a nutshell.As for the "perfect" human ideas that have been put up, that is just a matter of opinion. As for cloning being used to weed out and kill deseases, that is for gene therapy and what not. Cloning, in and of itself, will have no direct impact on that except for allowing the new "product" to be susceptible to the same deseases and illnesses as the original.

Edited July 31, 2006 by Logan Deathbringer (see edit history)

[Chesso 0]

Well that depends on your definition of a soul and if the religious version of what they deem a soul even exists.We know clones can exist so that's an obvious answer but not a soul so >_<.

[lonebyrd 0]

Indeed the question of a clone having a soul would be a big debate amoung the religous faction. I for one believe it would not have one. It is made with the help of scientists not by the hand of a 'higher power'. That right there makes it a clear cut decision for me. How could anything made from science have a soul? A human born into this world is made naturally, the way it was intended, no intervention. And just before anyone steps in here, I'm not saying that humans born 'with the help of science' have no soul. Science has helped many people have children. But not just design one like from a blue print as a clone would be. Not natural.. No soul.

[Chesso 0]

Well that could be up for debate too. Depending on how someone was cloned or how the clone was made. I don't know of any special godly thing that just thwacks a soul into a newborn baby....So even if you built and designed it in a different manner if you get the same end result (more then one approach to many things) why shouldn't it have a soul? if souls do indeed exist.That's just thinking on a simple logical level though.A very simple and basic example of this is:2+2 = 4 and 1*4 = 4.Two different ways of getting the same result, but anyone can probably guess what is wrong with that in terms of mathematics but you get the idea right

[illini319 0]

i highly doubt we could ever quantify/define soul with anything scientific. so i'll leave that one alone. to get back at the cloning issue...there is nothing wrong with cloning; only in how it is used. the fastest way to make something dangerous is to outlaw it. Establish ethical regulations and enforce these rules.

[mpinsky 0]

i highly doubt we could ever quantify/define soul with anything scientific. so i'll leave that one alone. to get back at the cloning issue...there is nothing wrong with cloning; only in how it is used. the fastest way to make something dangerous is to outlaw it. Establish ethical regulations and enforce these rules.

I fail to see what you mean here. Maybe it's because I didn't quite understand what you wrote. Anyways, the fastest way to make something dangerous is not to outlaw it, but to misuse it.

While I do agree with cloning as long as the purpose is ligitimite, cloning an entire human makes me rather uncomfortable. I mean, what would it prove except that we could?

Also, people get this notion in their minds that a clone will look exactly like its DNA donor and that it will be empty-minded. People have to understand that you're not creating a human being that has no personal will of its own or will be just like its donor, but a whole different entire being with its own range of emotions, thoughts, and feelings.

[Chesso 0]

It's just an alternate to natural birth that has the possibility of being a little more controlled.There is alot of bad things that could come out of it but also alot of possible good. If we could find certain defining things that will cause problems later in life for a human they could be removed/altered to help prevent or not have it in the first place.But that requires alot of testing and refining..... I'm sure that there would be alot of hell over it.

[illini319 0]

I don't think it is particularly useful for cloning an entire human. I don't even see the true purpose of it (cost/effective ratio). Surely, I can see how people might want to grow organs that are genetically similar to theirs. In such cases, growing an entire human being doesn't seem particularly useful when all I need is a heart... or a kidney etc. So, when I said there isn't any problem with cloning... I meant that I don't have any problem with cloning within the definition of 'organ' backup.

[kerouac 0]

Take a situation where a woman's father is dying of an incurable disease. The father also is a surgeon and is very good at his job. Then consider a man who has just broken up with his girfriend. Both individuals might have perfectly valid reasons for wanting to clone someone, but which should be allowed?

[mpinsky 0]

I'm going to have to disagree with that.Why would you clone someone for that reason? Not only is it expensive, as I've said before, just because you clone someone doesn't mean that they will have the same thoughts, feelings, memories, abilities, etc. as its DNA donor does. Cloning someone is basically creating a whole new person, not an exact replica that will act exactly the same.Plus, I think breaking up with one's girlfriend is not a very good reason for cloning. Why would one even use that method in such a situation in the first place?

[Arbitrary 0]

Take a situation where a woman's father is dying of an incurable disease. The father also is a surgeon and is very good at his job. Then consider a man who has just broken up with his girfriend. Both individuals might have perfectly valid reasons for wanting to clone someone, but which should be allowed?

I agree with mpinsky on this one--why should they be allowed to clone? This could easily turn into a class war--the rich people get to clone because they can afford it, so in turn they live many times happier than the poor with all their wishes fulfilled. The poor have no way of compensating for the payment and thus the gap between the rich and poor widens even further. It's also implying that lives can be bought, and that the wealthy's lives are worth more than the indigent.
@Chesso, yes, it probably seems a lot better to base it off choice--you do what you want, but in turn this can have problems. Suppose Family A decides that they want their child's genes to be chosen by them and Family B lets nature chose. It's most likely that Family A will have the smarter, prettier, better, etc child than Family B, meaning that Family A's child is better at Family B's child in nearly everything that matters in our world. Now Family B will feel annoyed that their child cannot make it in the competitive world and the next child they have they will most likely decide to choose its genes.

This in turn becomes a cycle--no family wants their child to be incompetent and unable to survive in their world, so they have to change the genes, all because of one family.

Moreover, even with choice there is still the factor with the rich and the poor--by allowing the filtering of unwanted genes, who is rich and who is poor will be defined by whose genes have been chosen and whose have not. Those whose genes have not been filtered will end up being poor, and vice versa. And since it is most likely that those with chosen genes will be more intelligent than their counterparts, their counterparts may not even realize that they are being manipulated to do manual labor/some other form of unwanted work.

Freedom of choice cannot really be achieved unless everyone starts on equal grounds. And even if everyone did start on equal grounds now, they won't once some of them decide to choose genes and others decide not to.
Edited August 8, 2006 by Arbitrary (see edit history)

[Chesso 0]

I was thinking more along the lines of changes that help prevent/protect against or completely remove common/well known diseases, virus's etc.I suppose that might just help prolong life even more (not a good thing if you worry about over population, were pretty much there already).

[BooZker 0]

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I believe just like anything it should be alowed with restrictions. Here are two situations where I think it should be and not be allowed. The first is the one that should not be allowed:Jim (made up person) wants a child. He has never had one before. He is not married, nor does he have a girl friend or boy friend. The option of cloning is available now. Jim goes down to the cloning plant and they tell him for a price they can make him a boy or a girl. It can have any qualites he likes. They also can all be perfect. They will not die from genetic disease. So they make him a child.To understand why I think this should not be allowed read the one i think should be allowed:Jim and Jane have a child named Jake. Jake is a good kid but has his flaws. He was born into the world. One day he was out on his bike and got hit by a car. He was only 10. The parents were in shock and knew about cloning. They didn't agree with it at first, but when people loose kids they do things they thought the wouldn't. They go down to the plant and the cloning doctors tell them they can make him again. He will grow up the exact same. He will look the same and probably like some of the same things. They can make him perfect, but it is against the law. So in the end they decide to go with it and clone Jake. Jake grew up a normal boy.--I believe that in some cases it would be OK. As in the matter of the second example the family already had a child and lossed him when he was only ten. What is wrong with making a child again when he or she was already on this planet and when they cloned him or her they were the same. This includes the same flaws. I do not think that when someone just wants a kid they can go in there and make him or her perfect. Maybe it would be fine if they only had one kid, but could only have them so good at one thing. I don't know, but i think it should not be completely banned.So my point? Do not make people if they weren't already here. If they were here and died in a freak accident it should be approved and they must be the same with the same flaws and personality. I do not think they can make the same personality anyways, because some of you personality is made from where you grew up and with who.

[mpinsky 0]

How would they know that Jake's clone would have the same likes and dislikes? These things are not in your genetic code. Instead, these and other such things are aquired tastes, not traits. It is not something that can be controlled Also, why clone Jake if they can just have another child and save money? Jake was a unique being, why clone him if you can have another unique child naturally?