From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Human Cloning: Yesterday's Never Is Today's Why Not?
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative

In <66mdol$mhl@news.inforamp.net> Wing_Chung@Hotmail.Com (Wing Chung)
writes:

>On 9 Dec 1997 23:24:15 GMT, svere@ix.netcom.com(Steven A Vere) wrote:
>
>>In <66fj52$nep@news.inforamp.net> Wing_Chung@Hotmail.Com (Wing Chung)
>>writes:
>>>
>>>On 5 Dec 1997 12:19:57 GMT, jetsilverx@aol.com (JetsilverX) wrote:
>>>
>>>>This anti cloning panic is pure technophobia. BFD. If you made a clone
>>>>of someone, it is no more "him" than an identical twin.
>>>>
>>>>And the wonderful potentials of cloning should not be held back by
>>>>legislators who have no science education. Who knows, maybe
>>>>replacement organs could be grown, making transplants easier and
>>>>safer.
>>>>
>>>>Jet Silverman  To email me, remove the x.
>
>There is a huge difference between cloning an organ and a total human
>being. Do you how many times Dolly was cloned before a success  ever
>happened. Do wonder how many malformed sheep where created and
>destroyed think about a more complex organism like a human are we
>going to play hit and miss. If one is deformed will we kill "HIM Or
>HER".  A missing limb a head on backwards organs missing.


   I think you've seen Alien Resurection too many times.  Malformations
and problems happen in early embryo development, to be sure, but they
are almost always fatal early on.  The same happens in normal human
pregnancy-- at least 1/3 of pregancies never make it, and probably
more.  So what?  These are not people, any more than a set of
blueprints and a cornerstone is a "building."

   There are (to be sure) some religious people who think that some
kind of ghost or "soul" enters in to an ovum at the moment of
fertilization.   This is a late view, and in strict contrast to the
views of most religions and most philosophies for millennia, which saw
the "soul" (a word synonymous with breath in most ancient languages)
entering at first breath.  But when does the second soul enter, when
the embryo splits to make identical twins or triplets (natural clones)?
Or when this is done artificially to make clones?  Perhaps every time
you separate a cell in a dish, you're calling down a soul from
Heaven--- ding, ding, ding?  Is that what these people think? And when
you squash two embryos together so that they form one organism with
four sets of parents (easy enough to do) where does the extra soul go?


                                                Steve Harris, M.D.