Cloning Humans

[zombie@computer]

No. By law, the 'parent' of a creature is the organism who gave birth to it.

hence the quotes around owner

Well, I was trying to make several points compressed:
1) The person who gives birth isn't necessarily the guardian.
2) You dog has a puppy, the dog doesn't own the puppy. Since they are not human we do not attribute them any rights.
3) Using the word 'owner' confuses the issue when talking about human children, since humans (in most civilised countries) don't have owners. The closest thing to an 'owner' is collective law.

points taken

[Woe Kitten]

Here's a few pointers from a philosophy student on the reasons your all having trouble putting up decent arguments against cloning.

1. Any scientific argument you put up will more than likely cease to be a problem at some point in the future. There is no point arguing against a scientist, if you are coming from 'this can't be done' because the scientist will inevitably try to do it and probably prove you wrong.

2. Laws are made to protect the individual from the state and to protect the individual from other individuals. Unless we deny that the cloned agent has human status, we will be forced to make laws that protect them at least as well as we ourselves are protected. The means of production is irrelevant. Your arguments about ownership would be more worthwhile if they were aimed at proposing sensible laws that would protect the cloned individual.

3. Morality is the third area in which human cloning comes under attack. This is your only hope. Stick to it. The problem is, morality is subjective, so what you think is wrong will not be wrong for others.

[TheSalmonator]

Seeing how I am coming into this very late in the game, I'll just tell my general view on some of the issues.

I'm all for finding a way to clone individual organs. I have a Grandmother who has lost both her kidneys, and I have seen what damage disfunctional organs can do.

Cloning a person does not make them the same person. At all. Genetically they are the same, but the mind could be extremely different. Not to mention, they aren't controlled by the same mind, which tends to be assosciated as the source of identity, and is the headquarters of personality.

Which sort of brings me to the point about putting your mind in a computer.. There is a certain word or term for it... I think it was "Mind-transfer". Don't quote me on that, though. But that brings up again the issue of whether they really are that original person. I mean, if you take the mind of someone, put it into a machine where there conscious lives for however long it may need to stay, and then put it back into a body, you'll never know if that really is the originaly person's mind and personality. Sure, the one you put in back in the body will have the stream of consciousness from body to machine to body, but you'll never really be sure that it really is that person.

Sure, to you, it'll be the same person. But what if you are that person. If its just a copy and paste kinda' thing, then, I don't see it as the same person. Maybe it has the same experiences and memories, but it wasn't realy there.

But then there is another idea of how to do it, which is where the parts of the mind and conscious and transferrring them to the machine, making the mind partially run of that machine. Maybe that'd work. I had it all worked out about what I was gonna say about that, but I just had a brainfart. Shat.

Damnit. I had a whole bunch more to say. Maybe I'll remember in the morning.

[mabufo]

What is your opinion on cloning of humans? Do you think it should be allowed or not.

Personnally I hope we never see a cloned human. I think we'll eventually be able to clone organs which will be great, however I think that if we ever began cloning whole humans it would only cause trouble. It's not a religious or even a scientific issue with me. It's more a moral and security issue. Who's to say what rights a cloned human has? Would the government own them, or a private business, or even the original person themself? People might look at clones as outcasts or not even something unhuman. Also what's to stop a cloned person from taking on the full identity of another? What happens when someone dies, will the family clone the loved one? What about cloning people like cereal killers, rapists, even dictators?

Are you fucking serious? All cloning is is taking someone elses genetic information and implanting it in an egg, and then the woman will go through pregnancy and deliver normally... You seem to have the idea that you can manufacture people on an assembly line - which is fucking insane. Good day to you.

EDIT: The worst that would happen is that the clones would grow up - go to school, get jobs, contribute to society - and OH NO! - they would look similar.

Having come out with that - cloning humans will never get off the ground. I'm happy with that. If it did, I couldn't see anything wrong with it. Though I could care less anyway.