Cloning

Over the years I have read lots of papers written by pundits, theologians, bioethicists, and biologists about cloning. There are few good reasons for banning it. The reasons that are given are generally one of three types.

The first is theological, ie, God did not intend it that way. That is a stupid reason. God did not intend for people to mush up tomatoes, grate cheese, and put that all on some flat piece of dough, cook it, and eat it, but there are few people who ever consider banning pizza (execpt for a few orthodox Jews who have other problems with the way pizza is distributed). God did not intend in-vitro fertilization, democracy, nuclear weapons, or haircuts. As long as God didn't tell us that he minds, why should there be any problem. (What he tells people when no one else can hear, doesn't count.) I have read many of the worlds main religious texts, and never did I see anyone's God talk about how to make babies. If it is a real God, He would have known the future. If He would have minded he would have told us.

The second main reason is stuff about human dignity. Most of the arguments are hand-waving about individuality and uniqueness. Somehow people think that if someone is a clone they will be born differently than anyone else. There is a wrong belief that they are born without out a personality, or suddenly become identical to their parent. This sort of thinking comes from people who learned about clones from cartoons, and have not given it any thought since they were about six years old. From the instant of birth people develop their own personalitiies, regardless of whose DNA they share. Twins are still allowed, even though they are in principle similar to clones.

People may have seen the movie "Boys from Brazil" and assumed that the only purpose for cloning would be to make lots of copies of Hitler. Again, this is retarded. Even a modern-day clone of Hitler would not be the Hitler that we all know and hate. Someone who learnd about cloning from Austin Powers's Dr. Evil is not any more sophisticated.

Finally there are biologists. Biologists tend to favor cloning. Those who do not tend to oppose it for technical reasons. Of course they are right. IF, and this is clearly a big IF, they cannot do it safely, they should not. But if they can, then there is no reason to ban it.

There are many reasons one might want to clone someone. Therefore we should not oppose it if it were technically possible.

Today this French woman, who is clearly loony and should be locked up, claimed that she succeeded in cloning someone. Now this kid will grow up in a psycho religious cult. This would be unfair to the kid if he was born regularly or via a cloning procedure. I wish her the best of luck, and hope she gets help for her religious issues.

Moreover, you would think that the religious right would be happy about cloning. Less people now have to have sex, annd there is now a new way to be fruitful, multiply and fill up the earth.

On the down side though, I am so not looking forward to the first psycho who annouces that she really wants to give birth to bin Laden's clone.