Playing God

[inferiare]

Yomi's Evil Twin Intern wrote:

But you're saying that cloning is putting life into something that wasn't meant to be alive - how is that qualitatively different from IVF, fertilising eggs that just weren't meant originally to be fertilised? It's still making babies where, if the process had been carried out 100% naturally, they would not have been made.

That's not quite cloning, though. While the child isn't carried inside of its mother for those 9 months, it's creating a life that is more natural than cloning. Of course, the argument of "getting a woman pregnant is a mode of cloning" as well.

I probably shouldn't have stopped writing that like halfway through, mainly, and wrote it when I was more awake XD I'm more concerned that a cloned person will find itself thinking it's not a part of nature. A child that was conceived using invitro or even artificial insemination is still living its life from the moment it is born. I think it was Freedan who said that if you clone someone from when they were mid-life, or even in old age, the person you clone will have their lifespan shortened that much more. I'd be upset to know that not only was I a clone of someone else, but that I wouldn't be able to live my life to its fullest because my lifespan is horribly short. That is what isn't natural, and I don't think we have any right to mess with it. I miss those that have died just as much as everyone else does, but cloning that person isn't right.

Plus, if you don't carry the mind over (not that you could if the person is dead, but), there's no guarantee that the clone would be exactly like the person you're trying to clone. They would look the same and sound the same, but they wouldn't be that person you knew. It's like identical twins; they look the same and all, but there's no way they're going to be the same in everything they do.

[Yet One More Idiot]

Actually those were my points in the cloning thread, about the clone carrying on from the age of the person they're cloned from. But yes, that does raise awkward issues of clones dying of old age whilst still relatively young.

Hopefully though, any clones made would be accorded equal human rights; it's not as if anybody passing by in the street would be able to spot a clone anyway (unless they'd been rather deliberately given some distinguishing physical feature during their developmental stages). And if memories aren't carried over from the original, they'd have a chance at making their life their own, to enjoy as they see fit. Which wouldn't be so bad...

[psychokind]

Yomi's Evil Twin Intern wrote:

Hopefully though, any clones made would be accorded equal human rights; it's not as if anybody passing by in the street would be able to spot a clone anyway (unless they'd been rather deliberately given some distinguishing physical feature during their developmental stages). And if memories aren't carried over from the original, they'd have a chance at making their life their own, to enjoy as they see fit. Which wouldn't be so bad...

then what's the point in cloning? organic replacement, soldiers, work force, that would make sense, but why should one clone average persons just to let them lead a normal life?^^

[Yet One More Idiot]

psychokind wrote:

Yomi's Evil Twin Intern wrote: Hopefully though, any clones made would be accorded equal human rights; it's not as if anybody passing by in the street would be able to spot a clone anyway (unless they'd been rather deliberately given some distinguishing physical feature during their developmental stages). And if memories aren't carried over from the original, they'd have a chance at making their life their own, to enjoy as they see fit. Which wouldn't be so bad... then what's the point in cloning? organic replacement, soldiers, work force, that would make sense, but why should one clone average persons just to let them lead a normal life?^^

Cloning as a means for to have offspring? (As sperm/egg donors are slowly gaining more rights to know about their offspring and have contact with them)

OK, that was weak even by my standards....ooooh, I has new art! (See how smoothly I changed the subject? )