Re: FYI:Clinton vs human cloning : Pres ignores self-ownership (fwd)

Eugene Leitl (Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Fri, 7 Mar 1997 07:54:37 +0100 (MET)


On Thu, 6 Mar 1997, Hal Finney wrote:

> The main issue which I find disturbing in cloning and similar proposals
> is, what about the children produced? Who defends their interests, and to
> what extent should I condone someone performing experiments which may lead
> to children who suffer from brain damage or deformities? Apparently it
> took > 100 tries to produce Dolly the sheep. I wouldn't be surprised
> if they had some pretty messed-up lambs along the way.

The same dilemma has been adressed nicely in John Brunner's "Shockwave
Rider", where they had any number of misshapen failures in their quest
for the "Ubermensch. Brunner seems to be strongly contra cloning, btw.

If we are to keep severely retarded or semianencephalic self clones for
blood donoring or organ transplant purposes, the shotgun approach of
current recombinant DNA technology will have some grave problems. Anybody
care for a selfburger?

We've surely set up a worm farm if we consider transgenetic animals as
ersatz wombs for human breeding.

ciao,
'gene