Cloning: Right or Wrong?

Stem Cell Research & Cloning Forum

I wanna hear some opinions on human cloning? Should it be allowed? Is it unethical? Is it OK to clone organs for transplants. Would it be a good idea to create a human clone. Would it have a soul. What would some benefits be? Opinions please.

I don't see a Biblical reason to oppose it... however, I think the issue is more with the moral questions. Who would the clone belong to? What rights would a clone have? would they be used for spare parts? And think of the life a clone would have... being poked and prodded all their life to see how they are developing. And what about the first generations of clones, they would be the test version, living in labs, with no rights...

I think they would be human, and they would have a soul... since it is God that gives us souls, and it is God that gives life, if the clone were allowed to be manufactured, and God gave it life, I don't see why he would'nt also give the clone a soul.

1young11 said:

"I think they would be human, and they would have a soul... since it is God that gives us souls, and it is God that gives life, if the clone were allowed to be manufactured, and God gave it life, I don't see why he would'nt also give the clone a soul."

Maybe we should ask God his opinion. Maybe it's subjects like this that James anticipated when he said, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.

Cloning Humans For "parts"? No. I really dont like animals cloned for food. If a cheeseburger looked more like a Cow...I would eat nuts and berries. Cloning humans for parts I have to believe Is Against God will or Just wrong. Next does a clone have rights? If you were a clone and "today we are removing your arm" does that clone feel anything?

I don't see any ethical difference between a clone and a test tube baby, surrogate births, etc. The clone is someone's identical twin just much younger, that's all. Thus the clone is fully human if the technology is completely 100% successful - if not well... OMG... that is why it should never be done.

And in no way should the clone be considered to be anything else but a human just like any other person on the planet.

I do not believe cloning is right at all... why do it? Certainly not for spare parts... even if the cloning would create a new life and save another by sharing bone marrow or a liver.... We should concentrate on growing livers and such for spare parts, like skin is grown today for burn victims.

i don't have a problem with cloning human organs. whole people? i could say yes or no and then a week from now change my mind so i don't want to get into that. i don't have the wisdom to give an answer as to it's being right or wrong.

what if (in the future) we could grow an entire body without a brain. if you're unhappy with your body (maybe it's gotten too out of shape or too old) are we looking at brain transplants some day?

Wow, Larke...

That's a great thing to consider. Not just the initial effects of allowing human cloning, but the 'innovations' that will inevitably come along after the permission is granted. Humans are notorious for pushing the envelope wherever they can. This issue would be no different...

sierradaddy, you're exactly right: "Humans are notorious for pushing the envelope wherever they can. This issue would be no different..." hadn't seen any posts from you in a while. i thought that dinosaur of yours finally fell into that tar pit in the sky.

ROFL!! It almost DID! It couldn't handle what I needed to do with it, so I've given up on that endeavor until I can improve the hardware I've got...

"... that tar pit in the sky."

It wasn't an opinion on cloning, it was a hello to Helen. But, now that you've asked, and I had to be polite and answer, that makes 3 off-topic posts instead of just one.

Marlene... That's too funny. I was thinking the SAME thing. Either that, or the message that was received, and first believed to be a true message, got unscrambled, and found to be not so true or important!?


Anyway... I'm
I can't see why people need to clone. I just have such unease about this. I guess that I would really need to do a lot of research on this particular topic before I could give a thorough and true opinion on it. Still, I think that it's too creepy.

And Larke... what a great thought, that we would have these shells cloned, and then, someday a brain transplant, to keep you living even longer. WOW! Don't know how I feel about that either... but it's one freaky thought. I can see a movie being made out of that one comment of yours.

I got stuck with that human cloning idea in my brain... the brain ages (mine sure has) so a brain transplant would not do me much good even if I got into a young body again

But wouldn't it be great to be able to clone the really smart people, like all Nobel price winners, or musical, mathematical and other geniuses, people with IQs over 200, like the 12 year old kid in the MD/PhD program at the U of Chicago.... then have these people raise a few of their own clones as their off spring...or raise clones of other smart people who facinate them, explaining to the young clones everything they know and how they think so that the clones would grow up in the most stimulating environment possible? But would the clones be as interested in learning as their "parents" since the personalities could be quite different.... a clone might prefer Harry Potter, Matrix, and computer games over nuclear medine or searching for the right equation in support of the string theory.

There are definitely nutritional advantages and methods of parenting to bring up a child today so that the child develops to its fullest mental potential and achieves its highest IQ level, so would the clones be like a super breed of high IQ people? ... While there are no specific genes for intelligence per say that we know of, genetics and nutrition does play a large role... but so does the entire environment.

What could they achieve with say 2 or 4 generations of clones from the smartest people in the world? But would these super geniuses be able to live and be happy with the rest of the people in the world? They may need a city built for them, the 12 year olds preforming as mayors, judges, professors, research scientist... I would love to see what would come out of it. Could we break the IQ barrier of 300?

To some degree we get that already... the scientists marry other scientist, but their off spring is not necessarily as gifted as their parents.

And no Marlene & KJ, I'm not back at any other forum and I limit my time here as well to just God and science because I have several new projects in life which are keeping me busy.

Sure... there could be some great uses for cloning... but is it really necessary? Like this world really NEEDS two of me running around. Heaven help us all... my mother said that I've always been a bundle... but 2 of me!!? WOW!

Marlene... sure, when your husband is away on business, his clone would be home, keeping you company. And, doing the laundry, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, and paying 100% devoted attention to you all the time. That would be nice...

Still... I don't think that I like this cloning idea.


PS... Helen, it's called a joke!

Marlene said:

"Maybe we should ask God his opinion. Maybe it's subjects like this that James anticipated when he said, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God."

And that is just what I was pointing out... that there are too many questions, and too many potential problems for cloning to be a wise choice.

Humans are involved, it will not be perfect, there will be mistakes, and its not right to willingly allow mistakes to torment fellow humans (clones) out of selfish ambition.

I agree with you 1young11. There will be mistakes and these clones will be the one's to suffer. They will live their lives being human pin cushions, and lab rats. They will have no say in things. That is cruel in my opinion. It's bad enough that we take animals and put them in labs and do all these tests on them. Why should be breed people for the same things? Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if it's something that the government has been doing for years.

Speaking of clones, anyone had a chance to catch an MTV cartoon called Clone High? It's an interesting and humorous look at what might happen if we produced clones of key figures in history, and threw them all into a high school together.

There's a number of characters, from Abe Lincoln to Ghengis Khan. Abe wants to be like the original, but is a bumbling goof. Maybe they got something wrong when they cloned him...

Then there's Gandi, who has pretty much given up all hope of ever equalling his original, so Ghandi's turned into a party animal, always doing goofy things and trying to get a date with his one-time foster sister, Cleopatra.

I find that show to be hilarious, and I also thought it was a great idea to look at what cloning could do.

We think about the good... Hey, isn't there DNA on the Shroud of Turin? If we allow cloning, one day they will allow for a lab to collect DNA off the Shroud in an attempt to clone Jesus!

Marlene, looks like you've cloned that dancing banana!



LOOK!! I can do it TOO!!

Yes... and see how much of a brain those cloned banana's have? None... and that's about what we might expect with cloning humans. Just puppets on a string, to do as we tell them.

KJ, I'd like to think that my clone would have the same mental faculties that I have. After all, it (HE!) would be an exact physical copy of me, so he'd hold all of my potential. As Marlene mentioned earlier, it would really come down to what my clone experiences during his life, and how he responds to those experiences. I mean, I had my experiences growing up in the eighties, and my character blossomed and solidified during the 90's. Take me out of that time and start me up on my developmental process in this time, even put me right back in the same apartment with the same teachers and same school, etc. Even bring my family along. My experiences would still be altered, even if it only relates to how society has changed between the 80's and now. Even that change would affect my frame of mind. I believe it's no different if I were to be cloned. My clone would develop differently than I had. Basically, I'd have the opportunity to see how I would have developed under different circumstances.

Is the clone any less human than I am? I wouldn't say so. I think it would be hard to accept a child conceived in an unnatural way, but test-tube babies are the result of assisted conceptions that occur outside of the normal media. They aren't natural. I'm sure at one point in history it was considered "unnatural" to have children outside of wedlock. Recall what the term "bastard" means. Now think of what sort of term that is, and where the use of that term would and would not be acceptable.

I think that clones would be humans and they would be fine. It's when the scientists, or clone factories, would start up with the hated and dangerous gene manipulation. THAT is what would and could lead to very serious problems. That's where clones rights as human beings and individuals would be compromised.

One day however, this issue is going to be moot. The practice of cloning WILL eventually be accepted. If not in this generation or the next, then in the next. That's how the world seems to go. Is it for the better? Who knows... Is it an intriguing area of study, full of potential for the betterment of the human condition and overall society? Absolutely. Once the practice is accepted, will it head in that direction AND MAINTAIN IT'S COURSE? I doubt it... Once we eat up the green grass in that pasture, we'll move on to the next one, unless we start cloning grass!

The union of male and female to create life is fundamental to what we perceive humankind to be. If we allow laboratory manipulation to redefine that perception, we will be opening Pandora's Box.
Our species continues to exist because our genetic pool has, through the centuries, continued to deepen. The moment that we disturb the randomness of that process through either cloning or selective breeding, we, as a species are doomed.

KJ: you bring up a really good point. what if all this leads to a kind of "disposable humans" philosophy. yes, i agree with sierradaddy that the experiences would make a clone an individual that's separate from the physical original, but what if someone with the means to clone but no good moral compass comes along. and we have a kind of "underground" of clone distribution. i may sound faciscious, but i'm kind of serious. you've got a couple grand saved up. you need a maid or a butler on the cheap. so you buy a clone. you paid for it so you can do what you want with it. and would we consider the clone be an "it"? i said "it" without even thinking about it. it's easier to be hateful to an "it". and easier to dispose of when it's usefullness has worn out.

This Topic Is reminding me Of the movie "Blade runner". What if clone your own "Parts". If you needed a new Heart, Clone one of your own. Exact match..No regecting. Hmmm

No, definitely not trade sex for cloning! What about cloning as a means for organ transplants?

I think there would be a lot of defective clones created if it were made legal. There would then be question of what to do with these creations and if they actually have souls and what not or are they just expendable like lab rats. It is a very scary thing to think about.

By the way. why do we need to create an artificial man? What for? While a cloned organ is needed for a transplantation, but whole human being?

To my knowledge, this world has yet to produce a photocopy machine that can successfully and consistently produce double-sided copies without jamming.

Before moving on to humans, shouldn't we start here?