The clone's brain is probably stuck up on a shelf or tossed in the trash. Cloning people for the havesting of organs is undoubtably despicable and immoral to say the least. This is one of the reason we need to regulate this stuff. And we can't regulate it when some wackies go hide in another part of the world and do it. As long as the US is steadfast in forbiding research into cloning, this is exactly what will happen. The clones should have every constitutional right that every other person enjoys. Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

 

The CEO of Clonaid used to be a professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY which is near where I live (in Utica)

 

The likening of this to the city of Babylon is very accurate. The Tower of Babel was created, depending on the translation you read, to make man like God, to reach the heavens. These extremists are now doing the same thing. We may call it playing God, but it is no game! We are toying with something we don't understand, and is really beyond our understanding. These people are standing on the shoulders of others, spoofing research, and diving in head first. I can remember so many sci-fi shows where cloning was involved, and while it may have seen laughable then, it now is a grim reality. China has an army of millions. What if they took their fiercest generals, commanders, admirals, etc. and started cloning them? All it takes is a donor and a womb, and experiments with goats have shown the womb to be optional. Now what? Anybody here see Star Wars, Episode II? I am not some sci-fi freak, don't get me wrong. If you have seen the Trilogy, you know where EII is headed. Do you want to be staring down that army of engineered, brutal, and undyingly loyal soldiers? Think about it. Also, think about walking into a "Designer Child Center". Walking down the aisles, until you come to a clone of- yourself, a friend, a relative. Could you raise your Grandfather? What kind of parent would you be to your parents? To yourself? Now, let's bring N.Korea into this. The dictator over there, I forget his name, but it has been stated over and over that he is unpredictable. He has 'nukes. And, to the highest bidder goes-the technology to clone a human being, to be controlled as a servant, or to be a friend, or however you like it.

Jared

 

Unholy huh? I can go along with that word. Just what do we call holy now-a-days? I understand that babies are conceived out of wedlock, the father doesn't support the child or even care, the mother gets married (We haven't used the ******* word in years even though it's still in the dictionary) to government monthly checks and gets raises every time she drops another child from that father or anyone else that may be willing. I hear you get more money by having a child declared retarded.

I think as soon as they prove this child is a clone, the American woman with the heavily broken accent should be arrested for breaking the laws of this country and held responsible for the child’s entire life and medical bills, unless she gets a lawyer and gets off Scott free.

 

We can say one thing for sure, what we say and do over here has no effect on what china will be doing (or already has been, who knows).

 

The government cannot mandate morality, it can only regulate the actions of the "immoral". We tried this before with prohibition. If you mandate morality, where will it stop? It would only stop when all the people worshipped your god and follow your way of thinking; otherwise, it would be a slippery slope to that end. If you say I can't drink, next you say I can't cuss, then you say I can't work on sunday, next it would be my having to go to church, then to your church only and sing your songs. And all the while, I would be a hypocrite is God's eyes for having my 'outside' clean and my 'inside' full of rottenous like Jesus was going on about as told by Matthew (23:25-28).

A person must chose morality. All you can do is bring your children up right, to be moral. For a government to force morality on its citizens makes for a nation of hypocrites (at best) and, in my opinion, pisses God off!

If our congress makes any study into cloning illegal on the basis of moral issues, then these people will go somewhere else in the world and commit all kinds of human atrocities. But, if they leave it to the people to make up their own minds individually, then we are free to regulate this and see to it people aren't being grown like plants. And democracy will dictate the survival of these "corporations" by monetary means. If nobody orders a clone, they will go out of business. Either way, this is something nobody can stop. We must all come to terms with it.

 

I'm with a few others here with the opinion that hey, if I'm in a car wreck and my liver is half destroyed and it's only got a few months of operation left, and my left arm is gone, that'd be great if they could grow me a new liver and arm of my own. But let's stop there. God knows it's easier and more fun to make new people the old fashioned way, and billions of people have managed to raise children that they didn't know would turn out okay, so if they can do it so can everyone else.
And if we can clone, completely designing chilgren can't be far down the line. It'd be like in that film Gattica where everyone looks the same and is your stereotypical "attractive". Maybe I'm selfish, but I don't want to walk down the street, being 5'7"ish and stocky, definitely not the stereotypical "attractive", and look around to see all these 6'3" tall thin engineered guys pitying me for being a "natural born".

The Law
1989 F-250 HD 4x4
460, C6, BW 13-56, Sterling 10.25" (4.10:1), Dana 44 HD (4.09:1), twin K&N's, no muffler, stock lo-flo cat, Bosch Platinum Plugs (0.060") MSD 6A and TFI Blaster Coil

 

>The likening of this to the city of Babylon is very
>accurate. The Tower of Babel was created, depending on the
>translation you read, to make man like God, to reach the
>heavens.

I still don't see the US being likened unto the Babylonians. I would say Iraq with saddam building that mosque to be closer to god is more accurate. Especially so, since he is living in the neart of Babylonia. The book of Revelations is not clear about much, but one thing that it seems to strongly suggest, is the last empire will be a revived Roman empire, not a Babylonian one.

As for acting like God, anytime the state puts someone to death, they have acted like God. Jesus clearly states that we have not the power to create life (meaning from nothing) and neither can we destroy it; therefore, do not kill. As a result, I am far more concerned about our policy on capital punishment than I am on cloning. Creating life is better than destroying it.

Reminds me of a joke: A scientist thinks God didn't quite do a good enough job on creation day and challenges him to a creation contest. God says, "ok" and takes up some dirt and makes a man. God says, "now its your turn". The scientist then reaches down for some dirt and God says, "hold on a minute, you get your own dirt!"

 

Maybe I'm selfish, but I don't want to walk
>down the street, being 5'7"ish and stocky, definitely not
>the stereotypical "attractive", and look around to see all
>these 6'3" tall thin engineered guys pitying me for being a
>"natural born".

Clones don't have to look like each other. I remember when they cloned the cat, the kitten didn't look like the donor. There are lots of recessive genes we all carry that may surface at anytime. Any number of other things in the environment may affect it.

Last time I seen a litter of kittens, only 2 of the 8 looked like the parents. One the father, and one the mother, the others had white in there coats and neither of the parents had white.

Being 5'7"ish and stocky is a plus in cold weather climates. Not alot of surface area to lose heat from and not much body mass to feed when food is scarce. A tall man would have a tougher time as an eskimo and the tall gene would probably be lost, as he may not survive as well to happen to mate. Tall guys also have more joint trouble due to the increased leverage and needed musculature to move those long limbs. However, due to an abundance of food and an attractiveness that today's women have for tall men, kids are getting taller every generation.

 

A couple of points to keep in mind. First, this wacky cult group has not provided any evidence that they have actually produced a human clone. There is plenty of reason to believe that they've made it all up for the publicity. According to Drudge Report, until being run out of the U.S. a few years ago, Clonaid had its "headquarters" and "laboratory" in the science room of an abandoned high school in the hills of rural West Virginia. That's where French biochemist Brigitte Boisselier, a Raelian cultist, rented lab space in a building that Clonaid shared with a Bingo hall, a day-care center and plumbing and roofing companies. Reputable geneticists at major Universities all agree that Clonaid and the Raelians do not have the know-how or the sophisticated facilities and equipment that it would take to actually produce a human clone.

A bereft Charleston couple reportedly paid Clonaid $500,000 to bring back to life their son Andrew, a 10-month old baby boy who died after heart surgery in September 1999. A federal grand jury is reportedly looking into charges that Clonaid may be defrauding investors with phony claims about its human cloning technology.

I suspect that the $500,000 from that Charleston couple is running out, and Dr. Boisselier needs to get new fish on the line, so Clonaid has made a bogus claim to attract media attention.

The other point I wanted to make concerns limb and organ replacement. Some of you mave mentioned that you would be in favor of cloning for that purpose. Not only is it a VERY BAD IDEA, it's not necessary. We are getting very close to developing technology that will allow your body to regenerate damaged organs and tissue without "cloning" anything.

Think about it. Would you want to create a clone of yourself just to kill it so that its organs or limbs could be harvested for you? Is there anything more morally corrupt than that?

Better yet, it's not necessary. I work for a medical technology company. We recently commercialized a product known as INFUSE. It is the end result of 30 years and hundreds of millions of dollars of research. INFUSE is recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein number 2 (rhBMP-2). It is a manufactured form of a protein that your body already produces, and it does remarkable things.

Most of you have heard of "stem cells." Stem cells are the basic building blocks of the human body. Your body produces them in your bone marrow. As stem cells mature, they differentiate into one of the eight basic cell types that make up the human body. For example, you have neural cells that make up your brain, spinal cord, and nerves. You have dermal cells that make up your skin and internal membranes. You have muscle cells. You also have bone cells, or osteoblasts, that make up your bones. Of course, fetuses are composed initially almost entirely of stem cells, which mature into all of the complex systems that make up a human baby.

If you want to grow new tissue, whether it is a nerve or a bone or an organ, all you need to do is take your own stem cells and instruct them to turn into the right kind of mature cell. Back in the 1970s, scientists discovered the process that makes this happen -- the morphogenetic proteins. When you expose a stem cell to a particular morphogenetic protein, that triggers the stem cell to develop into that particular kind of mature cell. Thus, if you add bone morphogenetic proteins to a bunch of stem cells, they rapidly turn into mature bone tissue.

INFUSE rhBMP-2 is already revolutionalizing orthopedic surgery, by helping patients grow new bone where it is needed to replace injured or diseased bones or correct deformed ones. The time is not far off when neural morphogenetic proteins will allow your body to regrow nerve cells that could repair spinal cord injuries and let paralyzed people walk, and reverse degenerative brain conditions like Alzheimer's Disease. Similarly, it is likely that within our lifetimes, we will have figured out how to let your own body grow new organs to replace ones that are diseased or damaged.

The bottom line -- cloning simply is not necessary.

 

RanDawg,

Just out of curiosity, what is your personal stand on abortion and women's rights?

 

FYI, I found another interesting article about the Rael cult. You can read it here: http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/news2.html. The tabloid sent a reported undercover as a new "initiate" into the cult. He attended a sex retreat where the cultists instructed him that all members should have lots of sex with anyone and everyone, including homosexual sex and group sex. The cult also says that children should be taught to have sex solely for pleasure and without emotional attachment. Oh, and he was also told that he had to give the cult 10% of his income to help them build an "embassy" for the alien mother race.

If anyone on Earth believes what these people say, they are morons.

 

I bet the scientists can't wait to clone the most evil among us, in the name of science. The people that will be cloned are the rich, the crazy, the most eccentric of all. This is surely going to turn the world on end. I can already picture ol Adolf Hitler riding a Tyrannosaurus through Times Square. Woo Woo!

 

I think a few of you have seen too many of those old science fiction movies. Theres no way that anyone could clone a human being, and then harvest their organs. Once they become a human, they have rights just like every other human. This is no different than a test tube baby. It will have its own personality, and it wont necessailily look like the original. Its DNA will be the only thing that will be exactly like the donor. Furthermore nobody that needs an organ will have time to make then grow a clone into a mature adult in time to use it.

I only have 1 more word for all of ya. PARANOIA!!!!!!!!!



Tony Warren
Nebraska

 

>I only have 1 more word for all of ya.
>PARANOIA!!!!!!!!!
>

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get ya....