How long will it be before we have a president that doesn't oppose human cloning?

[RB TexLa]

Or better said how far behind whatever technology this research brings are we going to be before a president supports it.

[Deja Q]

1. With 6 billion humans on this planet and counting, do we really need any facsimiles?

I bet Xerox will get the patents first...

[cynatnite]

10. The world needs a Q...wouldn't you say?

:rofl:

[babylonsister]

2. Is this a twisted complaint about reversing Bush's stem cell policy?

What's your real beef? Why do you think this research will lead to cloning? I'm happy it might lead to some cures, and I imagine scientists might be also.

[RB TexLa]

4. No, it's because President Obama said he opposes human cloning.

which can also lead to some cures. We have no idea where it will lead. One thing we know, from Bush to Clinton to Bush to Obama the US is trying to make sure it leads nowhere.

[rcrush]

3. Why would you want to clone someone?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Why would you oppose it?

[rcrush]

8. Cause its creepy

And republicans would use it to create an army to take over the planet.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Republicans do that the old fashioned way by breeding.

In all the years of a scientifically illiterate public wailing against the horrors of cloning, I've never actually seen a good argument against it.

[morgan2]

25. so is having sex with animals

you gonna tell me you wanna ban that too?

[Starry Messenger]

31. I'm pretty sure that's illegal already.

Unless you are trying to say that having sex with animals creates republicans. I'm not quite getting your point.

[Posteritatis]

41. "it's creepy" is not a valid reason to forbid anything (nt)

[originalpckelly]

16. See my post.

Cloning is inherently unethical for that reason. Dolly didn't live as long as her mother. Though her death was attributed to a special type of lung cancer that takes the lives of sheep, and the institute that produced her maintained it was not related, it would seem to make sense that her premature death was caused by the fact of being a clone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_(sheep)

It's very interesting dolly died from cancer, as over-producing telomerase is linked to 90% of all cancers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemere#Telomeres_and_cancer

I suspect that one day not too far in the future, someone will publish a study that links short telomeres to a higher risk for cancer.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. See my post about never having heard a good argument.

And I've heard the telomere argument.

1. The telomere problem was a technical issue.

2. The telomere problem has been overcome, as modern cloned animals have telomeres of normal length.

3. Dolly appears to have died of a virus, which killed normal sheep in the same flock of the same age.

[originalpckelly]

28. The virus caused lung cancer, and it's possible she had less resistance to it.

If you look at the human population, you find that people die for basically two reasons: various types of cancer and heart disease.

There are also calve experiments that show 1/3 die young. Why? What's going on here? Probably related to telomeres, though I'm a not trained in that discipline and don't know as much. It's just a hunch.

[dustbunnie]

11. To harvest their organs when your own give out?

It'd be like insurance for old age or illness. The clones would be raised and educated on some compound, eventually taught to care for their friends as some become more and more depleted of their organs.

Sort of like what was depicted in the Ishiguro novel "Never Let Me Go."

[RB TexLa]

13. Everyone keeps thinking of a whole person cloned. We don't know what can be made

might be able to clone the organs without a brain and body. We don't know where it could go.

[originalpckelly]

18. Tissue engineering is a different matter from cloning whole people.

I suspect that's what's implied by human cloning.

[RB TexLa]

27. Still there is no reason to oppose such research.

We have no idea where it can lead.

[originalpckelly]

29. "We have no idea where it can lead."

That's perhaps the best argument against it. We need to work on developing a set of ethical standards before we proceed along these lines.

[RB TexLa]

30. So you would have opposed sailing past known seas? Or going to space

Might fall off the earth. Might burn up in space. No one knew where those ventures would lead either.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

32. There's nothing ethical about cowardice.

[originalpckelly]

37. And it's not cowardice to be so afraid of death we'd do something wrong to prevent it?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

38. Huh?

[originalpckelly]

39. Why else would we want to clone humans other than for pure scientific exploration?

Either that or slavery.

[Starry Messenger]

42. Is there anything wrong with being afraid of death?

I'm not exactly looking forward to it.

[Posteritatis]

40. Who knows where the field of medicine could go? Let's get rid of it! (nt)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

15. That would be kidnapping, slavery, and illegal organ farming.

Which are already illegal and have nothing to do with the process of human cloning.

[dustbunnie]

21. I was just being a smartass.

The novel was gruesome enough.

[Cleita]

17. Never going to happen.

In theory the cells can be manipulated to grow the organ without the rest of the body.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/genetic-science/cloned-organ-transplant.htm/printable

[Ezlivin]

20. Or the movie "The Island"

N/T

[Starry Messenger]

6. It can't come too soon for me.

I'm getting on in age. It would be selfish of me to deprive humanity of all my greatness. I'm a giver.



Serious answer: probably not for a long time.

[originalpckelly]

7. The telomeres are key, and would make any clones...

inherently less capable of living for as long as the animal/person whom has been cloned.

They act like the little plastic tips on the ends of shoe laces, it prevents DNA from being harmed. As a cell divides, each time it divides the telomeres in two. So as time goes on, there is less and less telomeres.

In a human being this is totally immoral, and would cause someone to die a premature death, and it forms my basis for thinking that human cloning is unethical. Though, perhaps if it is only used to produce stem cells it'll be OK.

Here is more on a telomere:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere

[Hannah Bell]

12. it's going to happen. you have only to look at the corporations lined up

behind related science & tech to see the writing on the wall.

brave new world *is* coming.

[Raven]

14. You are going to send me over to the dark side with this shit. No cloning!

we are bad enough as it is without us making more of us!! Jesus!

[Cleita]

23. Read the link on my post #17 about cloning organs.

It explains the possibilities of how it could be done for people who have been given a premature death sentence from organ failure. Often times people die before a donor match is made for them and even then the transplant can fail and the person will die regardless. Another article I read some time ago also brings up the possibility of putting the cells with the right DNA right into the recipient who will then grow the organ they need, like kidneys, liver or even a heart, right in their own bodies to eventually take over the functions of such organ.

[Cleita]

24. Oops! n/t

[rvablue]

19. I hope forever. Why do we need to clone people? Ugh! n/t

[Hannah Bell]

33. not only will we clone them, parents will chose their children's characteristics

on a class basis - maintained by income levels.

brave new world is coming; if you keep up with genetic research (& what's publicized is only part of what's happening), the writing's on the wall.

as is the declining "value" of human life per se, once it's assembly-line replicable.

[Cleita]

26. Maybe the next Republican president can solve the immigration

problem by cloning low paid workers from third world countries. :sarcasm:

[LooseWilly]

34. Hopefully soon...

I've been saving up...

I'm looking into getting my new clone on an installment plan too... I thought I'd start with a new liver.

[Politicalboi]

35. Give him some more time

If he did this now the Repukes would go ape shit crazy even more than they already are. Maybe by 2012 if gets re-elected he will have more freedom to do more. President Obama isn't stupid and if he sees that cloning helps people he would allow it.

[blues90]

36. that makes a lot of sense , lets clone everything

all have our own freezer stocked with spare body parts and all live for fucking ever. Then we can continue to reproduce and end up standing shoulder to shoulder until the planet can't supply even simple needs to exist anymore. Then I suppose to thin out the heard we can have our wars which blow living people to red mist and then we can clone them and blow them up again.

Why not focus on making life livable for the people who are already here?