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Fri 13 Feb, 2004 10:50 pm
It seems like the most successful strides in medicine lately have been as a result of controversial issues like stem cell research from aborted fetuses and now possibly human cloning.
It takes years and years of research to combat disease and viruses the old way with drugs and though there have been many accomplishments there have also been many failures. Not to mention unexpected evolution of viruses to become immune to the old drugs.
Are we going to have to take the next step and allow human cloning in order to make future strides in medicine. If we don't do so, will plagues and viruses grow more and more powerful faster than medical research can keep up?
Can cloning be done ethically?
Cloning embrios for stem cell research will proceed ahead with or without American participation. It's a shame old tabus have to be applied to something totally new.
It's a shame that the US will eventually loose it's edge in the medical field by sticking to the old ways, while the rest of the world advances around us.
Got to get new "leadership" here.
I know about stem cells, but I haven't been keeping up with cloning. What medical benefits is this supposed to provide?
The way I understand it (and am probably wrong) the idea is that in much the same way stem cells can be grown and specialized into organs, such as liver, lungs, etc... that a clone of someone or even an embryo can be made from which we could harvest the same potential organs.
To do so, some are obligated to argue, is murder...but is it? If we're killing one of our own creations to save the life of a 'real' person, it becomes one of those obnoxious, multisided ethical questions that has no real answer until a government official tells us how the 'right' way is.
roverroad, cloning is not a defense against plagues caused by bacteria and viruses. One of the primary benefits of sexual reproduction is that it mixes up the genes every generation which makes it harder for disease causing organisms to figure out a way to beat the immune system.
I don't see anything unethical about cloning and using cells from embryos. Nature wastes about 2/3 of human embryos anyway, and IMO, an embryo is not a "person" or "endowed with a soul" until it develops a functioning brain. (about 24 weeks gestation)
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Francisco, surely no one thinks that we will grow clones and harvest their organs! Clones would have the same legal rights as any other human being.
As you said, stem cells would be induced to grow directly into the needed organs, without any need for growing the rest of the body and brain which would indeed pose ethical problems.
As of now, it's only being done to harvest stem cells, not organs.
We create "real" people too, they just aren't exact copies of ourselves. I don't have anything against taking cells from embryos. but growing a little crop of "fake" people to take cells from is pretty wrong.
I'd rather see the cloning of human body parts such as spinal cords for the paralyzed and eyes for the blind, rather than humans.
Francisco D'Anconia wrote:The way I understand it (and am probably wrong) the idea is that in much the same way stem cells can be grown and specialized into organs, such as liver, lungs, etc... that a clone of someone or even an embryo can be made from which we could harvest the same potential organs.
To do so, some are obligated to argue, is murder...but is it? If we're killing one of our own creations to save the life of a 'real' person, it becomes one of those obnoxious, multisided ethical questions that has no real answer until a government official tells us how the 'right' way is.
A clone, if ever realized, would be a human being. End of story. No ethical debates required.
Well say that they went about it differently than they go about cloning animals. What if they can assure that the body that was harvested was only a package of skin, bones and origins but never had life. It may look human but it never had life, only contained living cells that are kept alive by machines. Wouldn't that be ethical? I wouldn't have a problem with that.
Child of the Light wrote:I'd rather see the cloning of human body parts such as spinal cords for the paralyzed and eyes for the blind, rather than humans.
I think the idea behind stem cell research is not for purposes of cloning to make spare body parts, but to discover what the "switches" are in cells themselves. The nuclei of your liver cells contains the same DNA as the nuclei of your skin cells. But why does one replicate into more liver cells and not skin cells? You see stem cells have the potential to develop into any type of cell in the body. (That potential is referred to as being pluripotent.) Once stem cells evolve into a designated line of cells (say those for the liver for instance) they forever stay that way. So it is the genetic "switch" that scientists are seeking from stem cells. What happens to turn off the stem cells pluripotency once they develop? That is the question. If scientists can answer that question, then, eventually, we could "fix" ourselves. For example, damaged nerve cells in spinal cords could be regenerated. It is an interesting subject area, but one with a lot of ethical debate involved.
roverroad wrote:It would definitely be human, but would it really be a being? If they create a mass of living tissue, bones and origins but the clone it's self doesn't have life, only the cells and the tissue, well, then it's not a human being, just an origin factory. If they ever cloned humans for the purpose of harvesting origins I'm sure it would be just a body of origins and not a conscious living being.
I would think it would be next to impossible to clone a human being that has living tissue yet no conscious life.
At the moment we don't have the ability to clone a human being healthily. This goes back to a conversation with my biology professor. She told me that Dolly the cloned sheep, was found to have "old" DNA. I believe this has something to do with structures called telomeres, which are non coding segments of DNA, provided to "cap" the "5" end of replicated DNA strands (I've only got a very basic understanding of this, so apologies if there's gaps in the info-even my prof didn't understand it all). It has been found that these structures get shorter in humans as they age, and may possibly be an indication of the aging process and limitation of lifespan. Basically what it means at this stage is, if you clone a 40 year old human being, then the resultant clone while only being an infant, starts life with 40-year-old DNA, and current evidence suggests would only have a lifespan of about 40 years, for the total of about the 80 year average lifespan that can be expected in the developed world.
caprice wrote:
A clone, if ever realized, would be a human being. End of story. No ethical debates required.
But is that really the end of the story? Does that clone go to public school? Is the fact the he/she is a clone public knowledge? What about the fact that this clone has no parents?
The clone wouldn't make it past 18 before he/she commits suicide.
Cloning perfected is just another way to have a baby. I agree with the poster who made a similar statement about that. Ethics shouldn't really enter into it at that stage. I believe people are resilient enough to accept thmselves for what they are. A clone would probably only be driven to suicide if the rest of the people hounded them without mercy until there was no other option worth considering. But, as has also been pointed out already: The current harvesting of stem cells has nothing to do with creating a line of living human beings called clones. It is only very early stages of embryos being created, not viable human beings with brains and self awareness.
edgarblythe wrote: A clone would probably onl be driven to suicide if the rest of the people hounded them without mercy until there was no other option worth considering.
Do you remember your teen years? Either you have done it to someone, seen it done to someone, or had it done to you. The ridicule we have all seen has probably been in the direction of a fat kid, or a dumb girl and even that can get intense. Can you imagine what would happen to a clone?
A clone would not necessarily be a fat, dumb, or otherwise unusual kid, but a normal person. I believe the real hounding would be journalists in search of sensationalism, church pastors, and the like.
edgarblythe wrote:A clone would not necessarily be a fat, dumb, or otherwise unusual kid, but a normal person. I believe the real hounding would be journalists in search of sensationalism, church pastors, and the like.
I'm not saying that the clone would be fat or dumb. I'm saying that kids will ruin another kid's high school life because they are fat or dumb. Imagine what they would do to a clone.
Also, you are right about the media.
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