I'm against it, mainly cause I've seen one too many sci-fi movies where cloning causes serious trouble.

Peter, what about cloning of organs to help the organ shortage problem?

Jwb52z: Well, I aquiesce on that point. It would certainly do away with waiting lists and preferential treatment.

Peter: Should I mark this day on my Calendar? I think this is the first time we've ever agreed on anything.

Peter-

If you start the cloning process in a cell that is already differentiated (for example, a liver cell) instead of an egg or a stem cell, you do not get a whole clone, just a cloned liver. [Actually this is a greatly simplified explanation, since most artificial cloning involves both a donor cell (which supplies the DNA) and a recipient cell (which supplies the membranes and nutrients).]

I have not come to any firm conclusion on my stand toward cloning. I can see great potential benefits, and I can appreciate the fears of those who are against it. I don't know if the one is great enough to outweigh he other.

A liver which is cloned, by peter's logic, is human, has a soul and an absolute right to life, therefore it must be kept alive in a willing(?) recipient. Anything else would be Against God's Will.

I cannot think of any reason to allow it, and I think any country that does it should be treated as though they are making chemical weapons.

Peter.
YOU can not think of any reason to ALLOW it? No surprise, good thing you have NO SAY in allowing it.Gee, I can not wait until England clones the first human. :~} Maybe a peter clone so he might......... nah, too easy. Sorry.

Peter, this may sound a little strange for you, but... you are not in charge.

(to everyone else)

And thank goodness for that.

I second that, Padawan.

Tom, you've answered my question before I could ask it: could we clone just the organ we need or would we have to clone an entire person to get it? I'd be very against the second reason, creating our own organ donors, cuz then the controversy arises: does the cloned person have rights? And besides that wouldn't it take as long for the clone to grow to adulthood as a person born to a woman? By that time the one in need of the organ(s) could very well either be dead or too far along to need a new organ anymore.

Peter, your heart's damaged by whatever means and the only way you'll live is to have it cloned and the clone put inside of you. Now, assuming it could be grown fairly quickly enough that you could live till the clone was ready, would you rather die, thinking it's God's will perhaps, or would you authorize the transplant? In other words, is your self-preservation instinct strong enough to override how you feel about cloning?

I just thought of something else. Jehovah's Witnesses are against blood transfusions. If our blood could be cloned, would they let their own cloned blood be transfused into their bodies? Do they allow dialysis of their blood? I'm not sure but I think I've heard before that maybe they allow plasma to be put into their bodies, don't they? Anyone know?

thoughts:

I'm totally against it because I believe the clones would become yet another underclass. Think about it:

Cloning becomes a viable practice.

Through a miscarriage of justice, the supreme court rules that clones do not have rights.

People (mostly rich people) are cloned to prevent organ rejection and such.

The clones are not educated; they are just stored away until Mr. Original needs a new organ.

Over the years, good-hearted people will purchase clones who, somehow or another have served their purpose (donor kicked the bucket or something like that) and without intervention, would probably have been "put to sleep". The liberators would then free them and educate them.

The educated clones would eventually take their case to the high court, winning their civil rights.

In the years that follow, free clones would be discriminated against.

Do we really need to go through all that? Are we really that ••••••?

By the way MikeC, perhaps a more appropriate title would have been "Clone of the Human Cloning Chapter!".

Hey everybody!

Boy, what a line-up!

Oh, this is too easy....

Slugbug stop your lies. A human liver is still not a human being, any more than my index finger is a separate human being.

But it has all of the human chromosomes in it!!!!

Oh, Ben, you wacky ex-moderator you...

>Jehovah's Witnesses are against blood transfusions. If our blood could be cloned, would they let their own cloned blood be transfused into their bodies? Do they allow dialysis of their blood? I'm not sure but I think I've heard before that maybe they allow plasma to be put into their bodies, don't they? Anyone know? <

My boyfriend is a Jehovah's Witness. I just emailed him the questions. Hopefully he'll be able to provide us with some insight into this matter! I know when he had heart surgery, the doctor re-transfused his own blood through a machine, so he wouldn't need any one else's, so dialysis would probably be okay. I'll let you all know what he comes up with.

::Jwb, I do not understand about human cloning to get extra organs. If we cloned someone, we would have as many people as organs. For example, if everyone were cloned once, we would have twice as many organs, but also twice as many people who require them. I do not see how increasing the demand exactly along with the supply (for organs) would help.:: Peter

We wouldn't be cloning the entire person, just the organ in question.

you said earlier that you loved Red Dwarf, something I also love, so maybe it should really have been Thursday.

Good point. Speaking of RD, is there any new info on the theatrical release? Last I heard it was gonna be an International release (US, UK<and Canada).

We wouldn't be cloning the entire person, just the organ in question.

Jw is quite correct, although I certainly think that anyone who runs a clonging center like this should be forced to take a barrage of ethics courses. last thing we need is Dr. Frankenstein being in charge of the health of the planet's population.

Running somewhat along the same lines, did anyone see '60 Minutes' tonight? Apparently, large scientific and research facilities are flooding the US Patent Office in order to file patents for certain genes. One company in Utah, Myriad, owns the patents for the two genes known to cause breast cancer.

I think this is a ridiculous and sad state of affairs. If I happen to carry one of those two breast cancer genes, I'm technically infringing on Myriad's patent rights.

Anyway, if we did start cloning, whether it be human or organ, how would that be affected by the patents that are held by those greedy companies?

(If I seem a wee bit upset by that whole scam, I am. Especially because of one of the interviews that '60 Minutes' did. And most especially because I am in a high risk cancer category.)

How do they expect to hold a patent on naturally occurring substances that are produced within the bodies of human beings, not Myriad's labs?

Cloning an entire person causes too many ethical questions. It would also be pointless. We hardly have a shortage of people being born every day. Also since these people are human they should be given all the rights that everyone else is afforded under the law.

Cloning an organ would be a remarkable medical breakthrough. No more waiting lists for an organ donor to die. No problems with the body rejecting an organ.

As for patenting a gene sequence. Patenting it does not mean that everyone who naturally has it is in violation of the patent. What it means is no other companies can do gene therapy based on that gene, which means that the patent holder can charge through the nose for treatment of something like Machiko Jenkins hypothetical breast cancer. The worse thing about that kind of business practice is these companies would not have any of these advances if it were not for the multi-billion $$$ Human Genome Project. The project was bankrolled by US tax money and the info was released to any researchers who wanted it. The info was made freely available because the project was made to help scientific advancement, not to turn a profit. What this means is the Bio-tech companies are using research that everyone's tax money paid for, taking the next step, patenting the results, than charging sick people a bundle of money for the life saving treatment that their own tax dollars helped develop.

Matthew Patterson

Anything that can be recreated or created from scratchin a lab can be patented. There are machines that can make genes and chromosomes from the base pair sequences that make up DNA. I've seen the machine on TV. It's a slow process, but it can be done.

Oh, I know that, but it's not as though they made it first. God did. Or, if you're not into that, some guy with a particular family history did. It's a really wacky thing to do, and something I hope the government takes notice of.

My boyfriend is a Jehovah's Witness. I just emailed him the questions. Hopefully he'll be able to provide us with some insight into this matter! I know when he had heart surgery, the doctor re-transfused his own blood through a machine, so he wouldn't need any one else's, so dialysis would probably be okay. I'll let you all know what he comes up with.
Thank you, Margie. I've had JW neighbors and even worked with a totally sweet, beautiful, gorgeous knockout JW girl (that I still have a crush on, even though I hardly ever see her anymore), but that's never been an item to cross my mind to discuss with them. I had a crush on that girl even before the one time she said she and I are alike in many ways, even with our different views on religion. It's just too bad she wouldn't go out with me cuz I'm not of her religion, a major criteria for her. *sigh* Just my luck. I only fall for the ones I can't have. Like MJ. Like Faith Hill (Thanks to Tim McGraw I have no Faith. He took my Faith away from me! *pout*).

I received an email back from my boyfriend. He thinks plasma transfusions are also not allowed. Cloning in general isn't considered moral. He wasn't sure what dialysis meant, so I'll have to get back to you on that. Corey's not as observant a JW as others are, so these answers may not be totally accurate.
He did say that his own blood was re-circulated back to him through a machine during his surgery, so at least I remembered that part ok!

I know how you feel MarkN. My Meredith Vieira was stolen by a dick (Richard Cohen).

:: Oh, I know that, but it's not as though they made it first. God did. Or, if you're not into that, some guy with a particular family history did. It's a really wacky thing to do, and something I hope the government takes notice of.:: Matthew Patterson

It will never be illegal, otherwise estrogen and other medicines with hormones couldn't be patented.

The story with the breast cancer is that one research facility at a university was doing research to develop a cure or something. And Myriad filed a cease-and-desist.

So they had to.

Which means that Myriad is the only company authorised to okay medical research. Which means that I'll have a better chance of developing breast cancer than I have of paying a treatment bill.

And that, folks, is why I dislike capitalism.

My Dear Miss M

Socialism and Communism and Fascism are not all that good of alternatives.

As long as mankind has the capacity for evil, there can never be a true Communist government.

We have had true communist governments all over the world for the last eight years, and that is why Communism is so popular.

No, we haven't. True socialism is supposed to eliminate class distinctions and place everyone on a level playing field. The various governments we've had that have called themselves socialist or communist have spectacularly failed to do that. Read Marx's book if you don't believe me.

::Senile old man is a better description of anyone making such a statement. We have had true communist governments all over the world for the last eight years, and that is why Communism is so popular.:: Peter

You don't know what a true communist government is if you think that.

Matthew, Marx wrote loads of books, and the ideas of socialism were inherent in Russian and Chinese ideas. They just didn't work, because Marx's theory was evil and despicable.

Peter.

William Cohen was US Defense Secretary under Clinton.
The (once and future) Defense Secretary is now Donald Rumsfield (sp?).

::They just didn't work, because Marx's theory was evil and despicable.:: Peter

Sorry, that's not why they dont' work. They don't work because they are in opposition to human nature. Remove greed and lust from the human mind/psyche, and you've got the perfect people for communism.

Rubbish yourself. The main reason that "communism" has failed is because anywhere a communist revolution has occurred, it's not ready (according to Marx). Instead, Lenin's "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" is applied.

For those who have never read Marx (I studied it about 20 years ago in college), economics follows a specific course, from Feudalism to Capitalism to Communism. Nowhere has there been a communist revolution in a post-feudal captialist state. Russia and China were essentially in the feudal state, so the revolutions were premature, as they were anywhere else.

Of course, the fact that a communist revolution has not occurred in a full-bore capitalist state could simply mean that Marx was wrong. Not evil, just wrong.

::Rubbish. The decent people are always the first to go in any communist state. Communism is about suppressing freedom and creating misery, not stopping greed and lust. It is a purely evil theory.:: Peter

No, as long as people have greed and lust within them, communism will never work. Everyone has those qualities no matter how well they can suppress them.

Other than to say that you are discussing two totally different things, (Peter is talking about "Communism" as practiced in certain dictatorships; Scott and Jwb seem to be talking about a blend of Marx's ideas and their own picture of a perfect society -- Scott with more emphasis on Marx, and Jwb on the ideal) and as such it would be impossible to come to an agreement, I am not going to get involved in this discussion. Anything more would thus be pointless.

:: Other than to say that you are discussing two totally different things, (Peter is talking about "Communism" as practiced in certain dictatorships; Scott and Jwb seem to be talking about a blend of Marx's ideas and their own picture of a perfect society -- Scott with more emphasis on Marx, and Jwb on the ideal) and as such it would be impossible to come to an agreement, I am not going to get involved in this discussion. Anything more would thus be pointless.:: TomM

What I was trying to say that real Communism is not possible because greed and lust exist. Communism is supposed to make everyone equal and have the "group" come first over the individual. As long as greed and lust exist, that can't work.

And all I was saying was that "Real Communism"^™ has never been attempted in this world.

Marx's theory was evil and despicable.

No Marx's theory was well intentioned but compleatly unworkable. It was a fantasy that a guy who had no clue about human nature came up with. The people like Stalan, in Russia, and Mau (sp)in China were evil and despicable and they were the ones who were suppressing freedom and creating misery.

Scott and Jwb, I did understand your points, and even to some extent agree with them. I was just pointing out that they would not impress someone who would dismiss them as irrelevant and unresponsive if, like Peter, he was using a different definition of the main term under discussion.

There is a brief paragraph that I'd like to quote that many say expresses an experiment in the communist ideal:

And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Acts 2:44 -47

(It should be noted that this is the end of chapter 2, and by the beginning of chapter 5, human greed had detroyed the ideals of the commune of believers.)

low grunting

Communism bad! Capitalism...rrr...um, good? Bad? RRRR!!!

The system the apostles and early members of Christ's church were using of having all things in common is something we call the Law of Consecration in LDS terminology. I suppose it does have similarities to communism, but there are some differences. In communism (at least in practice) the government basically seizes all property and divies it out how they want. In consecration, church members give over their surplus voluntarily to the church, which can then be distributed to the poor among them. The difference seems to be that in communism, the government is in charge, and since the government is the government, they have compulsory power. Consecration among church members cannot be forced against people's will because the church has no political power. Therefore, altruism has to be the motivating factor. It's a nice system, really, but like TomM pointed out in Acts 5, it's a hard ideal to live, and people started holding back after they had already pledged their property out of greed.

Since it's not 1950, I won't worry about anyone thinking I'm a pinko. Actually, I'm a fan of capitalism because it encourages competition and product improvement, and because of that, we now have two-ply, quilted bathroom tissue.

While the phrase "the Law of Consecration" is a new one to me, most of the churches I have been a member of have had basically the same principle. Many of them suggest that the "surplus" be the traditional Biblical (OT) "tithe," or one-tenth, although if the Lord has gifted you particularly generously, the suggest that you likewise be extra generous.

TomM, that's why, at least most, protestant religions do not use the word tithe anymore since the New Testament simply says to give as you have been prospered.

Cloning organs is good but technology cannot do it in the way we want to. Yet...

Matt, we're not that far off really. 50 years at the most. I know that may sound like a long time, but it's really not.

Hence the "Yet..."

Brian Webber has made the most logical, fact based opinion ever at the start of this board. At least the next Star Wars film....

I am a clone, i haven't much time, as they are chasing me down in their hovercraft, thats right, hovercraft. I will tell you it isn't fun being a clone, i have a nose on my arm, and five toes, total, oh ••••!!!! they are here

This is kinda like the Johova's Witness and the Blood Transfusion when alll you can ask is ..... why????

please ignore the last message, that clone never existed, we are a team of highly trained scientists tinkering with the theory of cloning, he went wrong... i mean, nothing went wrong, nothing happened, now back to the hovercaft!!!!

Wow!! i am suprised that other clones had gotten away! I swear i hate all these deformaties. I have many. like arms for legs and legs for arms.

About all of the ethical questions, may i ask you this:
you are on your death bed, and there is a way you may be able to live, would you
A. Die, thinking it is the "ethical thing to do"
or B. Live, taking the cloned organ

Ethics man, I suppose it depends if you wanted to live further, e.g. you hadn't fulfilled your life's ambitions, there was this one last itch to scratch, etc. but that would be the smart-alecky thing to say. Personally, I would forget the money and open the box of cloned organs, but I'm shallow like that.

Brian made some excellent points above. Here are my views:

I can appreciate the potential benefits that future cloned organs can provide - replacement livers or kidneys with few problems of graft rejection or graft versus host disease, for example. This implies that then fewer people will need to be on immunosuppressants, which is a very good thing indeed. Naturally, there will be those opposed to this, such as those where such an act is against their religion (for instance, I would refuse pig xenografts if I were offered them), or against their other principles. Nevertheless, if it can prolong many lives, it will create its own problems as alluded to by someone above - more people means more need for health care, just as increasing numbers of elderly people in the Western world are resulting in an increased demand for health and community care. Overall, there would need to be a greater demand for public services, including housing, and the implication is that not everyoone will therefore appreciate an equal standard of living. Oh yes, we could move out into space, but where is that orbital Hilton Hotel now? And who would afford to live there? And I haven't even started talking about cloning whole people yet...

Of course, the problem is that people will see the medical cloning of organs for an organ bank as great a breakthrough as, say, vaccination. It looks good on paper, but like all medical breakthroughs of the recent times, we'll just need to wait and see. (Besides, a more significant breakthrough in terms of improving the nation's health was the provision of public services.) If people put their faith into an intervention which may not prove to be cost-effective or significantly improve the quality of life of a patient, especially if the patient is not expected to live much longer after the operation, they won't bother much. (As an example, prosthetic hips are a costly procedure in Britain, but the improvement in quality of life in these patients after the operation is immense.)

What people are particularly against is using cloning to create what is in effect a cloned mind, a cloned consciousness, a cloned soul. Can the Frankenstein phenomenon occur, with creating "an army of clones to fight the separatists" or something? Maybe far in the future, once the technology allows more stable clones to appear. But should it happen? Are cloned souls expendable? Could it lead to a resurgence in slavery? Had enough of these rhetorical questions? [I know I have...]

As to whether organs themselves have a soul, it is worth asking a recent recipient of a donated organ to find out the answer.

MJ (Feb of 2001 post a long, long tome ago [in a galaxy far, far away]) sue them because you had it prior to them.

You people act like there is not an easier way to alleviate the organ shortage. Ever hear of capital punishment? Ever read Larry Niven?

All hail Rael!

Yeah, and I not only assisted in giving birth to a dozen human clones, but I also recently perfected teleportation technology. I won't offer one shred of evidence, or offer anything up for peer review, but you all believe me, right?

Re: capital punishment as organ replacement...
You'd still have the possibility of organ rejection, or a lot of drug induced intervention to prevent it. At least with cloned cells of your own, the possibility of organ/cell rejection may be reduced.
Plus, I'd be a little leery of receiving organs from people who are likely to be carriers of various diseases, or at least were at high risk to be exposed to said diseases.

Craig, it would be ELIMINATED, not reduced. You can't reject an organ that is yours.

According to an AP article I read recently, a twin would be genetically closer to you than a clone. People tend to believe that a clone is an exact replica of a person. That's not necessarily true. There is still room, IIRC, for genetic deviations. Thus the possibility for rejection is still there. But as Craig said, it is greatly reduced.

I wasn't quite certain of the exactness of the copy, and thus the possibility of rejection, which is why I phrased my post the way I did. But thanks for the feedback!

I got interrupted before I could finish...
I understand that in theory, the cloned cells should be exact copies, but in practice things may not turn out as planned.

I'm sure ScottN or somebody else more scientifically knowledgable will correct me, but I believe cloning is comparable to Xeroxing someone, in that each copy will lose something of the definition of the original. That is, a clone of, say, me (like we need more of me around) would have some slight genetic differences from me, yet still be my duplicate.

Not necessarily. I think it's more along the lines of identical twinning. Remember, "cc the Cat" had different markings from its "parent".

I don't know if "replicative fading" is real, or simply a canard carried forward from SF, and therefore have no comment on it.

Okay, thanks for the information Scott.

I think that no one knows enough about cloning to say for sure. I remember reading something about how some part of human chromosomes start to break down as a person ages. All I remember hearing about it was that someone had just discovered it and didn't know much about it or if they could prevent or slow it, possibly prolonging the human lifespan. If this is correct (and if I'm remembering right) cloning a human by copying chromosomes that have already started this process (rather than newly fused DNA from both parents) could lead to clones dieing young.

I am no expert and hated biology in school but it is true that during cell reproduction the outer ends of the chromosomes are often a little bit damaged (lost genes etc.). To prevent crucial defects there are alot of "dummy" genes called telomeres (sp?) at these places acting as a buffer. Their number is of course limited so that after a certain number of cell divisions the abovementioned degeneration begins. Now if you clone an adult something its telomeres are already partially used so that its lifespan is possibly shortened.

If you're cloned and the clone's an exact copy then would that include matching fingerprints, so if your clone did a crime you could be busted, no matter how far away you were at the time it was committed? Or is it still just supposition on that aspect?

Nope, that falls under external environmental (and in utero} factors. See the comment above about cc the cat. She had different markings.

Don't forget the clone ages at the same rate as any human; thus, if someone cloned my 30-something year old body today, the clone would take around 9 months to develop in a womb and another 30-something years to develop into what I look like today. And I would be well into my sixties at that point.

And the clone would of course have its own set of memories, experiences and so on, so would likely be very little like me in most respects.

Download memories into a vacant clone body to achieve immortality? Yeah, right, whatever.

Oh give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone,
With they Y chromosome changed into X
And due to this alone,
My very own clone
Will be of the opposite sex

ScottN, I know that was just a little joke but if the clone had 2 X chromosomes it would not be a copy of your DNA, since you have 1 X and 1 Y. Where are you planning on getting the other X from?

I wonder if Scott's little poem would make having sex with a clone illegal?

Brian-

If you wanted the clone to be as close to you as a 2X female can be, you could just duplicate your single X. Or if your equipment is evolved enough, and the humane gene mapping program is complete, you could even splice some sequences from the Y into the duplicate X.

...As opposed to the inhumane gene map, Tom?

Oooops!!

Howe dide thate "e"e Gete theree?e

It has been done. via CNN but we might be a tad premature. South Korea is where the Realeins (sp?) were.

Anyway it brings up does five cells have human rights or is it property? (Abortion debate anyone?) If it grows up, when does it cease being chattel property and instead be a human? (abortion debate again...)

You know my position. Evil scientist prevent sperm from finding eggs for their own nefarious goals. We must subdue them and release the sperm. ("No, Ted, pull up your pants and open the freezer.")