Steve quoted:
"The Scottish company that created Dolly the Sheep, the
world's first cloned sheep, is close to producing the world's
first cloned pig, a breakthrough that moves scientists a step
closer to making an exact genetic copy of a human being‰¥Ï..
The ability to clone a pig, which is much more complicated
than a sheep for reasons that are not fully understood, also
takes scientists a step nearer to cloning a human. One
scientist commented: "Theoretically, we are closer to
cloning a person, but the bigger the animal the harder they
are to clone. We are still a very long way from cloning a
whole person."
These sentences sent chills down my spine. Apparently,
materialism has so dehumanized human beings that some
scientists have an cold ,distant objective of "cloning a human."
Clone a mouse, clone a pig, clone a human. It's all the same
thing. Apparently they have found a way to get around the laws
that prevent experimenting on humans without consent - simply
experiment to make a human, who of course, cannot give consent.
While the cold, profit-driven scientists can talk about cloning a
human in the same breath as cloning a pig, it bothers me greatly
that they lose sight that they are talking about bringing an actual
*person* into existence in a way that is likely to be quite troubling
to them.
Who among you would want to be a clone? Who among you would
want to grow up as a clone? As children, part of the greatness of
being human is being unique. Moms tell their kids how special they
are because no one is like them. What will the clone's mom say? We
loved your deceased brother so much we decided to have him live
through you? Isn't that what the clone will hear? In the human reality
that is completely ignored by these greedy scientists, a human being
will come into existence and know that he/she exists as the product
of an experiment. He/she will know that in some way, someone else
was chosen as their genetic identity. That other person's existence
will always haunt and threaten the clone's sense of self. I simply can't
imagine the psychological trauma that would involve. The lost sense
of identity that all teens experienced would seem heart-wrenching for
this clone.
Some might point to identical twins. Yes, but such twins are not
chosen to be identical. Instead, they grow up as close brothers or
sisters and develop a unique relationship. A clone would be quite
different.
And as if the psychological problems would not be enough, there
are biological concerns. If a 42-year old man was cloned, then the
clone's DNA would be 43 years at birth. The problem is that somatic
mutations accumulate with age (which is why may cancers are old age
diseases) , thus a clone might very well be more likely to acquire an
"old age" disease as an adolescent. Can we be sure that clones will
not be much more likely to develop colon cancer or Alzheimer's disease
as a teen? After all, Dolly' teleomeres look abnormally "old." The only
way to find out is to make the clone - to do the experiment. But that
seems too risky to me. It's gambling with someone else's life without
their consent. And I would hope than any Biotech company that makes
human clones can be held legally responsible for any pain-and-suffering
the clone may experience.
Of course, these risks might be worth it if there was a very good and
powerful reason to clone humans. For example, if the human race
was headed towards extinction and needed to repopulate itself, cloning
could be useful. But in an overpopulated world, I can think of no good
reason to clone a human.
Mike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Mar 07 2000 - 10:08:09 EST