From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Wed May 01 2002 - 17:55:13 MDT
Lee Corbin writes:
> Emlyn said:
> > As much as I hate to do it, I must agree with the anti-
> > reproductive-cloning camp. Cloning is still broken...
> > don't try this at home kiddies!
>
> I wish to discuss a long discarded concept called "freedom"
> that was widely understood in the 18th century. The word is
> frequently still used today, but the meaning has all but
> vanished from the consciousness of 20th and 21st century
> peoples, and certainly from the posts on this list.
Surely you will agree that freedom does not justify allowing a peson to
do anything he wants to someone who happens to be weak and defenseless.
It does not justify child abuse.
Freedom applies to mutually voluntary actions, or to solitary actions.
Freedom means that a person can modify himself, his own body or mind,
in any way he desires.
But cloning is different. It inherently involves at least two people:
the cloner, and the clonee. It means the creation of a new human being,
who is powerless to affect the decision.
If you agree that child abuse is wrong, then you will probably agree
that intentionally genetically engineering a child in a harmful way is
wrong as well. The concern is that with present technology, cloning
amounts to exactly this procedure. It creates a child who, according to
recent research results, may be prone to birth defects, premature aging,
and possibly other problems.
Freedom does not grant parents carte blanche to harm defenseless
individuals. It does not give them the right to create infants who
are likely to be damaged. With current technology, even supporters of
freedom and individual autonomy are justified in opposing efforts of
others to create human clones.
Hal
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