From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Aug 11 1999 - 14:55:07 MDT
>
> Rev. Mahoney said, "Americans are very uncomfortable with human cloning. It
> is already illegal in Germany. Hopefully we can learn from history that the
> intention to bring healing can never justify such bizarre disregard for
> human life and morality."
>
I realize that Greg and a number of others have a desire in promoting
this thread for various reasons, but I want to add some balance to this.
As Greg Bear pointed out to me at the EI4 conference, you should
emphasize the personal benefits of cloning. You only have to say
to any parent, "If you had siamese offspring, would you want them
to remain "joined" for life?" -- that resolves the cloning question
very quickly. We have a *very* strong perspective, that people should
be "individuals". If two people arrive in this world "joined" as
non-individuals, we will generally promote the technologies that allow
them to become individuals.
Mahoney's perspective is ca-ca. There is no disregard for homan
life (perhaps even a promoting of it), Nor, do we disregard human
morality. We probabably even promote it.
What Mahoney is actually saying is "the intention to bring healing
can never justify such bizarre disregard for human suffering and
handicaps". He is implicitly saying, that humans who are born
handicapped should remain handicapped and that humans born with
a death sentence should remain subject to that death sentence.
Cloning is the development of those technologies that promote the
development and prolongevity of life. To argue that they disregard
human life and morality is a gross distortion of the facts.
Robert
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