Monday, October 30, 2006
Missouri Cloning Law Courts Stupidity
Whether you are liberal or conservative, the Missouri Cloning Stem Cell Amendment should deeply offend you. I have no doubt many of this bill’s proponents are genuinely concerned about ending human suffering, but they are tragically, (and inexcusably), uninformed. If you insist, as Michael J. Fox and others have, on fighting or arguing for it without understanding what it will do, then you aren’t simply stupid, you are foolish.
The initiative clearly states that “No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being.” The problem with that wording is that the amendment redefines human cloning as allowing the human clone to live. They are advocating cloning human life and mandating the cloned human’s destruction in order to use the human tissues for research.
Did any of you catch the recent sci-fi thriller “The Island?” In the movie, human clones are created in their adult state in order to develop life saving tissues and organs for the donors of the clone’s DNA. The donors believe, (because they are told and also because they are in a life threatening situation), that the human clones do not feel, hear or have any emotions. Rather, they are simply a product. In truth, any Doctor or scientist knows that even embryos hear and feel early on in the pregnancy, so it would be true even more so in the event of the fictional development of creating adult human clones. The cloning companies in the movie understood 2 things:
Americans would never allow themselves to be cloned if they knew the clones were living, feeling humans bred only to be killed.
People will do anything to survive, including shutting their minds off to ignore the truth.
There are many folks today who are living out those two truths presented in the movie. They understand they were once a teenager, a child, a new born, a fetus, an embryo... they know it is true, but they refuse to acknowlege the relevance of that truth when they see suffering- or when they are suffering. Most humans will do anything to survive.
Missouri could very well be the first state to legalize human cloning while mandating the destruction of the cloned human life for scientific research.
Don’t get caught up in blindly following the crowd on this issue. Read the law here. Read the argument against the amendment here.
The initiative clearly states that “No person may clone or attempt to clone a human being.” The problem with that wording is that the amendment redefines human cloning as allowing the human clone to live. They are advocating cloning human life and mandating the cloned human’s destruction in order to use the human tissues for research.
Did any of you catch the recent sci-fi thriller “The Island?” In the movie, human clones are created in their adult state in order to develop life saving tissues and organs for the donors of the clone’s DNA. The donors believe, (because they are told and also because they are in a life threatening situation), that the human clones do not feel, hear or have any emotions. Rather, they are simply a product. In truth, any Doctor or scientist knows that even embryos hear and feel early on in the pregnancy, so it would be true even more so in the event of the fictional development of creating adult human clones. The cloning companies in the movie understood 2 things:
Americans would never allow themselves to be cloned if they knew the clones were living, feeling humans bred only to be killed.
People will do anything to survive, including shutting their minds off to ignore the truth.
There are many folks today who are living out those two truths presented in the movie. They understand they were once a teenager, a child, a new born, a fetus, an embryo... they know it is true, but they refuse to acknowlege the relevance of that truth when they see suffering- or when they are suffering. Most humans will do anything to survive.
Missouri could very well be the first state to legalize human cloning while mandating the destruction of the cloned human life for scientific research.
Don’t get caught up in blindly following the crowd on this issue. Read the law here. Read the argument against the amendment here.
Comments:
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I read the proposed amendment and you're right: It does not prohibit making a clone that would some how come into existence immediately as a fully formed adult human being. It doesn't prohibit the creation of wolf men or persons with x-ray vision either, so maybe they simply decided it wasn't necessary to outlaw science fiction.
I'm in favor of stem cell research, but having just read the links you pointed us to I find the Missouri proposal to be a bit confusing. After all, there are more than enough left over embryos thrown in the trash at fertilization clinics all over the country to satisfy our current stem cell research needs. Cloning simply isn't necessary.
Right, Billy. That's why the MO proposal quite clearly bans it. And the other link provided above, to the article by White, must simply be intended for the brain-dead. It claims that the amendment would allow women to sell ova. That's a flat out lie that couldn't have any other possible intent except to mislead people. The amendment says, quite clearly:
(4) No person may, for valuable consideration, purchase or sell human blastocysts or eggs for stem cell research or stem cell therapies and cures.
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(4) No person may, for valuable consideration, purchase or sell human blastocysts or eggs for stem cell research or stem cell therapies and cures.
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