World View: Life, Science, and the Ramblings of a Mad Man

Are you opposed to cloning? Are you dumb?

Righto, so, pretty much everyone I've talked to on the subject of cloning has been pretty opposed to it. I have yet to understand why. I guess this is a little hard for me to write on because it's something I don't see as being wrong in any way, so it's hard to come up with counterarguments against arguments against cloning when I can't think of any argument against cloning, but here's my best shot:

A common issue I've heard brought up against cloning has been the idea that we are creating life (and that's bad... God told me so. HAHAHA). Well, that's just wrong. Let me enlighten you a bit as to what cloning is, and what it would primarily be used for (to be talked about more at the end of this rant, a few paragraphs down). Cloning as we know it today is the physical removal of a cellular nucleus (you know, the organelle of the cell that holds the DNA) and its reimplantation into a new ovum (egg cell). The new cell is then treated as thought it were a weak invitro: incubated for a while, and then implanted into a ready uterus. The cell implants into the lining of the uterus and begins to grow, as any baby would. This to me sounds an aweful lot like a heart transplant, except the donor heart is VERY small and the recipient is also VERY small. And I've never heard anyone complain about "creating life" when their grandfather got a heart transplant. The life was already there, both in the cell giving the nucleus and in the cell recieving it. So, as I stated above, the idea that life is being created is simply wrong.

Individuality is a big issue for many teens. I guess this is true for a lot of the people against the cloning argument because I've always heard it mentioned when I get into an argument about it. This one is more of a personal issue, so it's a little harder to argue against. I mean, who has the balls to tell me that it's ok for there to be more than one of me around? I want to be an individual, and that's that. Right? WRONG. First off, although you may have these sentiments, you don't have the right to impose them on someone else. Maybe I want to have another me going around. Maybe I don't want to be an individual. Even if this wasn't the case, and you could impose what you want onto other people, you would be off because clones aren't (or wouldn't be, I guess) the same person. They would be like identical twins that were born at different times—very different times, but they would be, as twins are, individuals. They would have their own feelings, ideas, perspectives, expierences and memories, etc. What makes a person an individual is not what they look like or what their DNA says; what makes them individuals are their experiences. So, although they may be the same genetically, they would be completely different people, with crushes on different people, different opinions on various issues, different tastes for foods, different scars (from learning to ride bikes or whatever), etc. The individuality argument is dead.

Some of the more interesting arguments against cloning have some theological background to them. I'm not a theologan but this is what I've learned, and what I believe. So everyone has a soul, right? And then through various messups in your life, you turn your soul to crap and go to hell. OK, bad joke. But really, the argument is that when you clone someone, there is already a soul for that individual so the clone does not get one. I can think of a few ways to argue against that. If it is true that clones don't have souls, then can it be said that twins don't have souls? Or that ones of the twins does but the other(s) don't? Could twins share a soul? I don't know how to answer these questions, and frankly, I don't think anyone that hasn't died can (and I'm not even sure if people that HAVE died can). But assume what you want: twins can either not have souls, they could share a soul between the two (or three or however many there are) of them, or they could each have a soul. In any case, it is what God (or whatever gives souls) decides and we can't know about it or change it. So, if someone were to be cloned, they would either not have a soul, have half a soul (shared with the clonee...if that's a word), or have an entire soul to themselves. What I'm getting at is that they are the same. Clones and twins would have the same chances of having a soul. Now assume the worst—they are born without souls. Then they will live a given life (whether it is shitty or awesome is up to the parents and/or the individual clone, for the most part), and then they will die. And that's the end. They won't miss heaven, because upon death everything will stop for them, and they won't fear hell for the same reason (assuming you believe in heaven and hell) Regardless, the clonee will either go to one or the other (again, assuming heaven and hell) and all will be just as well as if the person had never been cloned.

People also argue that cloning is messing with "God's creation", or whatever. I guess to even talk about this you have to assume God, and not only God but God as many Judeo-Christians understand Him to be. So we'll assume that, even though...yeah, let's not open that box. God creates in a week, takes the weeked off, you know the story—and I feel bad for anyone who takes this literally; who wants to live in a world without evolution? And to tell you the truth, this is probably the best argument against cloning that I can think of, because in cloning something we are, truly, messing with "God's creation." The problem with the argument is, we're messing with God's creation ALL THE TIME! Do you not take advil if you have a headache? Do you not take antacids if you ate too much? Hell, didn't we (as a country) bomb the living shit (literally) out of innocent people in Iraq, Afghnistan, etc? Do we not allow abortions? Do we not artificially inseminate the cows we feed on...or ourselves for that matter? What the hell, we even do it at the cellular level when test tube babies are "created" (as a scientist I should be saying "invitro fertilization," but I don't know how many people know what that is...) I don't think combining two cells, or parts of two cells should be limited because it constitutes "messing with God's creation," especially considering we don't take issue ending life or changing it with drugs.

This is pretty much the extent of semi-inteligent arguments I've heard against cloning. What follows is a discussion of some of the more silly arguments. Among these is the fear of some mad man (which, could, in theory, do this without regard to its legality) making an army of super-clones. This gets somewhat into the sci-fi relm because lets face it, we can't engineer super-people yet and even if we could, we can't mass produce people in bottles (or test tubes). But for the sake of argument, let's say we can. What then? Well, hate to break it to you, but this could happen whether you are for cloning or against it. If it were legal, however, it would be easier to keep track of legitimate cloning institutes and allow for more control in the system. We would be better off to have cloning legal in this type of scenario.

Another pretty dumb argument against cloning that I've heard is that it could be used to make children better; choose genes that make my little Jessica (or what ever name you have chosen for an offspring) smarter, faster, stronger, more resistant to diseases, less likely to get fat and/or suffer from cardiovascular diseases, more resistant to extreme tempratures, etc. SO?! Wouldn't this be a good thing? Obviously this type of technology is far from being readily avaliable, if it is even possible at this point. Some people see this as a possible way in which a breed of rich super-humans will eventually enslave/opress regular humans. I guess that is possible, but the same thing could happen with nanotechnology. Hell, the same thing happens now. If you know anything about US foreign policy, you should know that we have a way of keeping ourselves (not as individuals, and certainly not myself...I mean "ourselves" as in "the United States") on top, even if it mean stepping on others. And hopefully with time and good leadership, this type of technology could be used to rid humanity of some of the more crippling diseases we face: prevent trisomy 21 (down syndrome), sickle cell anemia, etc. It could even help prepare us for an alien invasion...haha.

But seriously, I don't see why cloning should be illegal, or considered wrong, immoral, etc. If there's anything that I have missed, please comment or e-mail me. I'd love to have a good discussion about it. You might even change my mind and my next article would have to be titled, "How (insert your name here:______) made my previous article on cloning obsolete." Ah, the beauties of being liberal; I love being able to admit that I can/could be wrong). Hope you girls and guys have enjoyed the read as much as I have enjoyed the write! 'Till next week!