First Human Clone

Queen Firey-Bou · 31 December, 2002, 06:05:22 PM

yeah yeah go boys go boys..right on to all of above.
i mean mebbe if the human race was on its last leggs fair enough.. and yes one mustn't stop ignorance from driving science forwards, but when the only science that is allowed to forge ahead is that which benefits the greed perpetuating destructive selfish ignorant all-consuming capitalist corperate fat cat scumbags
....pause to relieve steam build up.....
when over half the world is in nightmarish poverty & dark ages, due to stupidity of the rich bit, when women are stoned to death for being shagged in one country & get injected with toxins to make their gobs look bigger in another
......fume....when useful sustainable low-maintenance poverty reducing technolegy is bought & shelved by the polluting corperate giants........
( this goes on for some time, it mentions personal responsibility, self determination as a western luxury, global human rights when seen in comparison to the nanny state farce of health & saftey legistlation, genocide , zenophobia, nazism, eugenics and so forth.....but was cut short as Boudicca leapt upon her big high horse to go fight an eco-war & rescue babies)

judge dreddd · 01 January, 2003, 08:42:57 PM

Can't reproduce ?

Get cloned and find your offspring cant either, then again they may be luckier.

Its medling with nature but so is medicine which leads to overpopulation which leads to other problems....

Exactly where do you draw the line ?

Something Fishy · 01 January, 2003, 08:52:45 PM

Good point made there, it is a very tricky one isn't it.

Without that life saving technology neither my wife (cancer) or my son (born 8 weeks early) would be alive now. Some would say if the technology is there to save lives then use it, others would say that families like mine are unnatural and contributing to over-population.

The same "if you can use it then do" argument is probably applied by many to cloning.

So where do you draw the line? I don't know.

Queen Firey-Bou · 01 January, 2003, 08:59:43 PM

yeah fishy,
it is tough isn't it, tho i managed to reproduce with no medical intervention & only nearly died once in childbirth... I would have been dead & crippled a few times from other stuff, some time ago with out the intervention of medical science.
so maybe we should draw the line somewhere which helps people & the planet & doesn't do anything, destructive, greedy, damaging Or pointless (like cloning for the sake of it) , then i think there would be enough of everything to go around.
where does a self sustaining happy balanced eco system lie ?

Something Fishy · 01 January, 2003, 09:04:36 PM

I totally agree with you.

You know i find it amazing. So many people you talk to have, by the time the reach their thirties, had something that would have killed / crippled them without modern medicine (yer fish included).

It makes you realise why most people didn't get past their thirties not so long ago. Maybe that was natures way of ensuring balance.

I totally agree with what your saying. If these things could just be used for good then there would be no issue. The problem is that humans just don't seem to work like that do they?

So you are a warrior mother then too!! Just like the first Ms B.

Slippery PD · 02 January, 2003, 12:35:48 AM

Theres a lot of duality in people generally, whilst we disagree with some science. If it would save our lives most of us would use it. On that I agree with the fish and the warrior queen.

However, if we clone a new life, just coz we made it. Does that mean it shouldnt be treated as an equal??? These are the questions that morally we have to face, its tough an its difficult and I for one am glad that I dont have to make the decision on it......

Somehow making a life to save another seems somehow odd.....

yer Perplexed slippo

Matt Timson · 02 January, 2003, 12:59:23 AM

Yeah- it's a toughie. I'd have died at seventeen if not for the wonders of modern medical science (maybe we can start a whole new thread out of our collective "I nearly died" stories?!?) and I think a lot of this argument is all about a matter of perspective.

It wasn't all that long ago that organ transplants were seen as being totally unnatural (and they are- but they save lives, so I'm all for it). No doubt fifty to a hundred years down the line, we'll all be saying the same thing about cloned organs and future generations will be wondering what all the fuss was about.

Right now (to me at any rate) it seems pretty fucking stupid to be cloning humans when we can't even clone sheep without serious problems occuring later on. I'm sure that one day, the cloning process will be understood inside and out- but until you can perfect it in animals (apologies to all you animal lovers- but this is only my feeble opinion), it just seems unnecessarily cruel and stupid to experiment with human lives.

Like I said, at the moment, it seems crazy that we could all end up living for ages past our sell by date by replacing our knackered organs with cloned spares- but it wasn't that long ago in the great scheme of things that if you lost too much blood, you bled to death and that was that. If you want to be really pedantic- any medical procedure is kind of against nature- but who doesn't want to live as full a life as possible? I can't believe that living to your fifties was at one time considered a long life. In the future, the same might be said of those that didn't make it to their one hundred and fifties- or beyond- in our time.

The tech is out there and won't be going away any time soon- but little steps need to be taken. Outright bans on cloning and cloning research will only lead scientists to more liberal countries and less ethical (or in this case- fucking lunatic) backers (in my opinion).

I don't know- I don't explain myself very well- but I guess I can see good and bad in the situation. It'd be nice to save lives, but the arrogance of cloning humans at this stage of understanding is bordering on evil as far as I am concerned. I even feel a bit sorry for the bloody sheep.

All that said- we'll no doubt have cloned armies in the future as well- which isn't quite so cool.

Do I go on? My girlfriend says I go on...

seeneester · 02 January, 2003, 01:35:42 AM

What about the issues of clone predjudice and slavery? Has nothing been learnt from history? Methinks these scientists should be forced to watch multiple screenings of Gattacca until they finally understand that the human spirit is what makes us unique and a better constructed human does not make a better human being.

Trout · 02 January, 2003, 06:58:59 PM

FYI, all, it has indeed been a slow news week.

For a fortnight.

- Trout

judge dreddd · 02 January, 2003, 07:30:51 PM

I would have died at birth without that incubator, and this board would have less posters so role on scientific advancements.

I suggest only people who like 2000ad should be cloned then we would have more posters....

Its humanities destiny to develop more and more ace ways to fuck up nature and then bleed the planet dry of resources and have an all out war etc. etc.

as richard dawkins says in the selfish gene, their is a natural solution to overpopulation - starvation.

I figure if you cant get a mate and breed naturally their is probably a good reason so your clone will probably die out as well, your just postponing the enevitable.

Art · 03 January, 2003, 07:46:42 PM

Suprise suprise...

Tests to "prove" that this baby is a clone have been delayed, possibly because of legal claims over guardianship but more likely because these people are utter nutballs who are talking a load of old twaddle.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2624661.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2624661.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38651000/jpg/_38651755_afp150saucer.jpg">

Oddboy · 07 January, 2003, 07:24:37 PM

There are further moral issues than so far discussed - questions that cannot be answered until a 'perfect' clone has been created.
Would a clone actually have a human soul?
Should a clone be classed as a person or an organism/animal?
We'd like to think that yes, a clone is just like anyone else - but we can't know that until we've got one living (and dying) amongst us.
God gives us the soul that makes us who we are - not scientists.
Would a clone has a soul would it have a different soul to the one it was cloned from or would it be effectively a new person (more like a son/daughter then the same copy)?

Trout · 07 January, 2003, 07:30:42 PM

"Would a clone actually have a human soul?"

These are valid points. I'm glad someone's raised them, because the fact we probably don't have an answer to them is in itself an argument against cloning humans.

There are also several related legal issues, not least whether "manufactured" babies would have the same rights as "normal" ones.

The whole thing's a bloody minefield and, frankly, our society isn't ready for it yet.

Even medically, this issue would be easier to deal with when we know more about the effects on the clone itself.

Is it fair to a child to "create" them with 30-year-old genes, a shortened lifespan and the possibility of a painful existence, with a whole host of possible medical problems?

I, for one, am quite glad the Raelians seem to be lying loonies.

- Trout

Oddboy · 07 January, 2003, 07:53:02 PM

Given that there is a huge amount of orphans / unwanted children in the world already, you also have to question why anyone would really want a cloned human...
(Would it not be easier & better all round to stop abortions & cloning by putting these people in contact with each other?)

Cloning limbs/organs (other than the brain) may be acceptable for medical transplant reasons, but I can see NO reason why full human cloning should ever need to be used.

Jared Katooie · 07 January, 2003, 08:24:08 PM

Well this is going to be a highly controversial point of view but I feel that in the world we live in overcrowding and pollution and destruction caused by scientific advances are bigger problems than disease or Suffering. Technology can help us live longer and now, perhaps forever but what is the point if the world is a poisoned destroted nightmare. The endless march of science has saved lives but it has cost much more. I say no more. Man must face the world he lives in. If he gets hurt he can die, if he gets sick he can die. Imany people would have died without the advancements in science but science is picky about who it helps.

We should all be equal but money says otherwise. Oh, and the Raelians have no more cloned someone than I have a bald farmer called Pat growing out of my back.

J "anarchist" Katooie