From - Thu Feb 5 16:48:01 1998 Path: news.clark.net!europa.clark.net!208.134.241.18!newsfeed.internetmci.com!152.163.199.19!portc03.blue.aol.com!audrey02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: hume@aol.com (Hume) Newsgroups: alt.bio.technology.cloning Subject: Against a Prohibition on Cloning Date: 1 Feb 1998 20:29:35 GMT Lines: 189 Message-ID: <19980201202901.PAA15909@ladder02.news.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder02.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
The only way that my wife can have a child that is biologically hers is through the technology associated with cloning. If we ever brought this daughter into the world, we would name her Theresia. Yet, many are eager to prohibit my wife from having a daughter of her own.
If there were good reason to keep her from having her own biological children, then she would have to shrug and accept it. But none of the reasons offered against cloning are very good. In some cases, it is horrifying to see some of the reasons people are willing to accept.
These reasons can be divided into six families.
1. Religious Objections. These include arguments ranging from "my god does not want people to clone," to "cloning is playing god," to "clones will not have souls."
First, to those whose god objects to Theresia coming into this world, I say that this is between you and your god. We are not a part of your religion. So long as our actions are harmless you have no more right to make us obey your god's dictates than to force us to worship the Sabbath or pay tithes.
Second, cloning no more involves "playing God" than other forms of reproduction. All of it, equally, creates life. And where the objection is that cloning is "unnatural;" artificial insemination, surgery, and the use of antibiotics are equally unnatural, yet still permitted.
Third, I am shocked to hear so many people claim that a person born of humans, who is fully human, can lack a soul. This way of thinking belongs in that part of the past where people sought rationalizations for genocide and slavery.
I can well imagine some playmates and adults telling Theresia that she has no soul, and I would teach her that these people are as worthy of contempt as any bigot. I would tell her of relatives who said that marrying somebody of a different race and having children was selfish, because it showed disregard to the suffering and rejection that the child would experience at the hands of others. And I hope that Theresia would quickly be able to understand that the moral fault lies, not with those who bring this child into the world, but with those others who refuse to accept her.
2. Technological Terror Objections. This can also be called the 10,000 Hitler objection, since it is most commonly stated as fear that someone would use the technology that gave us Theresia to create an army of Hitlers.
It's a fear generated from too much bad science fiction. Cloned soldiers would still have to be carried to maturity by an army of mothers, and raised by an army of nannies and teachers. It would still take about two decades to come up with the first batch of useful soldiers.
Even then, getting the clones to all believe the same thing would be impossible. Knowledge can not be cloned, and knowledge heavily influences what type of person we become. To hear the way some people speak about an army of mindless clones with identical personalities, one would think that Hitler's clones would all grow up speaking German, regardless of the language spoken by those around them.
A dictator wanting to have a "superior soldier" would be best advised to use more traditional methods of reproduction and selective breeding, combined with traditional methods of propaganda. Granted, this will produce some soldiers that are below norm, but it will produce others that are above norm that can be used to create the next generation of even better soldiers; a benefit that cloning does not allow. Here, cloning changes nothing.
3. Defective Child Objections. These objections are grounded on the fact that the cloning procedure is complicated, and could result in the child suffering from birth defects.
This objection may have some validity if clones develop particularly severe problems, such as extreme unending pain.
However, it is also dangerous to hold too strongly to a principle that states "we may prohibit you from having biological children of your own whenever we feel that your child will fail to meet to our standards for a normal' child." If this is a valid reason to prohibit procreation, we would be justified in requiring genetic testing for all couples. And whenever a risk of a "defective" child would be equivalent to the risk in cloning, those couples would have to be prohibited from having children as well.
I knew a person whose parents had to make this type of decision. Knowing that having a "normal" child was unlikely, they had the child anyway. When I encountered that child in college, she said, "Whenever I think of the handicaps I have to live with, I look at the blue sky and the snow covered mountains and think I would have missed out on all of this if my parents did not have me. It's not an ideal life, but it is better than nothing."
4. Slavery and Spare Parts Objections. These objections hold that cloning should be prohibited on the grounds that clones will be treated as slaves or, worse, chopped up and sold as spare parts.
Enslaving, and chopping up people for spare parts, are already prohibited. There is no reason to believe that cloning will result in people relaxing these restrictions. It is, in fact, absurd to think of somebody seriously considering the possibility that legalized cloning would result in the repeal of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
If people were really interested in creating people to be used as spare parts, they could be doing this today with our present technology. Granted, a clone would be a better match for a recipient than a person conceived from a sperm and egg. Still, traditional offspring are good enough for practical purposes. Cloning adds nothing to the equation. Thus, there is no reason to treat cloning any differently.
I have no fear that Theresia will fall into such a fate; and where there are people less concerned with the wrongness of these moral crimes, people born of normal births are just as likely to face this fate as clones.
5. Selfishness objections: In discussing this issue, a lot of people assert that my wife and I are selfish for wanting to bring Theresia into our home, particularly since so many children are waiting to be adopted.
If we are being selfish, we are no more selfish than the hundreds of millions of people each year who plan a pregnancy. They, too, are deciding in favor of having a child of their own. We are no more worthy of condemnation for deciding to have our own child than they.
Some also assert that we may be prohibited from bringing Theresia into this world because it would contribute to overpopulation. But, again, this objection is just as valid against everybody who intentionally has a child of their own. Prohibiting us from having Theresia while permitting others their own children is entirely arbitrary.
6. Funny Feeling Objections. Here, the arguer raises no specific objection to cloning. He simply asserts that the thought of cloning bothers him.
However, I find this "funny feeling"some have very much like the "funny feeling" certain racists get at the thought of a white person and a black person having a mixed-race child. The feelings are a symptom of a prejudice, and history gives many examples of sentiments such as these dominating a society, affecting even otherwise good people. In the case of cloning, this prejudice is probably acquired by too much exposure the bad science fiction described in (2) above, the way prejudice against mixed-race couples is learned by too much exposure to racism.
However, when it comes to stating that my wife and I are to be prohibited from having Theresia, it is not unreasonable to insist on a more substantive objection than "the thought of your having that child bothers me."
Summary
None of this argues that we should begin cloning humans tomorrow. There is an established set of guidelines for testing new medical procedures, which restrict trials on humans pending the results of preliminary studies. Cloning should be subject to these guidelines. Holding the science of cloning to these restrictions requires no additional legislation; rules are already in place.
However, if lawmakers are going to make new laws that effectively prohibit certain people from procreating, we must have good reason to do so. None of the reasons presented against cloning stand up to this weight.
1. "Your Theresia is offensive to God, therefore she must not be allowed to come into this world" is a dangerous principle to accept for restricting who may have children of their own.
2. Cloning can not create an army of people who think in identical ways, and is a very inefficient way to create an army, compared to methods already available.
3. The risk that bringing Theresia into this world shall be prohibited because she might fall short of somebody's idea of perfection will start us down a very dangerous road with implications far beyond cloning.
4. There is no more of a chance that Theresia will be a slave or sold off for spare parts than there is for children conceived through traditional means.
5. In wanting a child of our own, we are no more selfish and no more guilty of contributing to an overpopulation problem than every one of the hundreds of millions of parents planning to have their next child.
6. "Funny feelings" certainly are not good enough reasons to make it illegal for my wife to have her own biological child.
Some of these reasons simply arise from a misunderstanding of cloning. But a couple are frightening in their own right. Imagine living in a society where the people find it acceptable to assert, "your child would be less than perfect, so you may not have that child," or "our god is offended by your procreation, therefore you may not procreate."
It should not be difficult to imagine such a society at all. Look around you. Listen. I hear this every day.
Go to the main Cloning Page.