In my own opinion, anyone who has sufficiently research the human cloning issue
would not take such alarmist stances as you see being taken by a variety of
United States government officials. In discussions, most people bring up the
idea of cloning marginalizing the value of life and the notion of clone armies
ravaging the world. Given the low value human life has in general in the
world, marginalizing it does not seem to be an important issue (this assuming
that cloning would marginalize the value of life, which I think is the exact
opposite of what would happen). The objection of "clone armies" is absurd in
my opinion. You could also state that the Internet should be shut down since
child pornography is transmitted over it, that guns should be outlawed since
people use them to commit heinous crimes, that automobiles should be discarded
since people speed in them and people die in accidents, etc. etc. Every
activity has potential negative consequences and can be abused. Cloning is
simply "spooky" to the average person. "Spooky" and ignorance combined
together creates "witch hunt".
Doug Bailey
doug.bailey@ey.com