From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Dec 29 2002 - 23:36:18 MST
Brett writes
> If a healthy ovulating woman "owns" her own body in such a
> society she seem to have "property rights" over all the raw
> materials she needs to make a clone. All the medical apparatus
> and assistance could be readily purchased (in such) a society.
> It seems it would be very hard, (but perhaps not impossible),
> to mount an argument that denies her the sovereignty of her
> body, without undermining the "usual libertarian" "strictures"
> "enforcing" "property rights".
>
> I.E. The question would be begged if one doesn't own ones
> body what can one really own?
I agree, although most people in today's society regard
your body as actually belonging to the government. You
may not abuse the government's body: it must be securely
strapped into moving vehicles, helmets must be warn to
protect its head, prohibited chemicals are not allowed in
the government body's bloodstream, and so on. But we digress.
> > In A, cloning attempts are permitted only on animals, until
> > such time as 100% of cloning attempts result in perfectly
> > normal animals. Only then will cloning be allowed for
> > humans.
>
> (NB: Natural human reproduction doesn't even approach a
> 100% success rate. Maybe around 20 - 30%.) Does 100% mean
> 100.00000etc percent or is less than 1 failure in 200
> rounded to 100%. acceptable?
Yes. Sorry. The percent would have to be a reasonable
percent close to 100, and an exact number determined by
the government (who else?).
> > In B, cloning of human beings is also permitted, but abortions
> > of faulty humans are allowed up to the end of the second
> > trimester. While quite a number of people have been successfully
> > cloned, for each success approximately ten abortions take place.
>
> > Two questions: (1) which legal structure most closely meets
> > with your approval? (2) which community more closely meets
> > your ethical or moral standards?
> Also how healthy does the cloned child need to be to be
> determined a "success"? As healthy as the parent?
Only the government is wise enough to see all and know
all. (Sarcasm.) Actually, *all* these decisions should
be left to individuals, and small groups of consenting
individuals, and everyone else should butt out. But a
powerful part of 20th century consciousness is the need
to pass judgment backed up by law on all sorts of things
that don't directly affect one. One need only imagine,
for example, something going wrong in a laboratory
somewhere, and one instantly wishes to ban whatever it
is.
> For the prospective "parent" there is a point at which the risk
> becomes potentially reasonable and able to be taken as a matter
> of "informed consent" (in comparison even with success of normal
> fertilization). And as more do it the risks will presumably get lower.
Yes, that's how it will happen. But only after people have
become accustomed to the idea. Meanwhile, it's evil, and
the results of the accidents would be better off dead (just
ask them). Why, I myself, have two serious genetic defects
that might make most people think twice about whether they'd
want to ever be me, so I'm very glad that I was born while
accidents were still allowed.
But even someone a lot more freakish than I am is probably
better off being allowed to live (by those who pay the bills),
than never getting to be alive at all. But I don't know of
anyone on-line---certainly no Extropian---who would agree.
Lee
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