What's you stance on the cloning debate?

We need cloning for all the "spare parts" that people need for organ transplants and the like.

 

Ummmm:
Italian woman reported pregnant with clone
ROME, April 5 DPA|Published: Saturday April 6, 7:56 AM



Italy's Medical Association is considering disciplinary action against fertility specialist Severino Antinori after reports that one of his patients is eight weeks pregnant with a clone.

"One woman among thousands of infertile couples in the (cloning) program is eight weeks pregnant," Antinori was quoted as saying at a meeting in the United Arab Emirates.

The news was reported by the online edition of Britain's New Scientist magazine. If confirmed, it would represent the first human cloning pregnancy, New Scientist wrote.

Human cloning has been banned in many countries, including Italy and the United States, with experts warning of the high risk severe birth defects.

Last August, Antinori and Dr Panos Zavos, a former University of Kentucky researcher, said they planned to transfer DNA from the nuclei of living cells into human eggs to create a human embryo, which would then be implanted into a woman's uterus.

Their announcement drew worldwide criticism. Today's report caused an immediate uproar in Italy.

According to the Ansa news agency, Italy's Medical Association was investigating the report and would take disciplinary action if it found it to be true.

Experiments on sheep, mice and other mammals have suffered high rates of embryo loss and early death.

Antinori's office in Rome declined to comment on Friday's reports but Richard Gardner, a British expert on therapeutic cloning, told New Scientist the pregnancy would be "grossly irresponsible given the current state of knowledge, even aside from any ethical issues".

Gardner also disputed Antinori's claim that he could screen embryos to limit the risk of malformation.

"There's no way you can do it," he said, citing undetectable single gene defects and additional problems relating to cancer.

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Lets hope this isnt true. If it is chances are the baby will either be aborted, or severly deformed.

 

Clones for all I say! Don't stop that cloning machine for a second!

No, just kidding, but I think it's shortsightedness and stupid religous dogmatism that causes humanity to be held back at such an alarming rate.

 

How can something be held back at an alarming rate ?

But I think I get your drift...you mean that conservative and religious ideals are slowing the rate of progress?

Given the separation of religion and state, this SHOULDNT happen, but lets face it, for every important decision, the first place politicians look is to their religious leaders.

 

Rise, and sin no more...

~PAd

 

IT IS NOT A RELIGIOUS IDEA THAT LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION. IT IS A SCIENTIFIC FACT.

Geez. How long will it take you guys to get that. Killing is killing is killing and it does not get more right if it happens to benifit somebody else.

An embryo is just not a potential human life. It is a human life with all its basic rights intact, no matter if it is in a womb, machine, or outer space.

 

Sure, life begins at conception. So what? It's not like that alone is going to win you the abortion argument, because an embryo is "alive" in some sense of the word. But since the embryos of virtually all animals are like exactly the same, their isn't really a difference between a frog embryo and a human embryo. And since we have no problem killing animals, I don't see why we care about embryo's. (Ok, I'm kidding, abortion is not a subject to be taken lightly. Abortions should be FROWNED upon, but NOT ILLEGAL.) A human embryo is a different because it "could" turn into a life. Well, who cares? I mean, if the guy decided not to have sex with the girl, there'd be no baby either. That's the point, we care about BABIES, not microcellular EMBRYOs. So until it's a BABY, until you can take in out of the mother's womb and have it survive with proper medical care, it's not yet protected as an individual life. and I agree.

I don't know how a cloning debate led to abortion, but I'll say it again. CLONING IS GOING TO HAPPEN. Might as well be the good old USA that get's rich off it.

 

I posted this in another cloning thread, boy, was it ever ignored. Its an alternative.

From MSNBC.COM

By punching holes in mature skin cells and soaking them in a solution made from immune system cells, they turned them into what look like T-cells---key immune system cells.

"They start acting like T-cells, thats the beauty of our system--we are not working with embryos or dealing with stem cells at all. You get around all these issues."

"Advanced cancer patients often have low T-cell counts, if you took a skin cell from a patient and turned it into a T-cell in the presence of tumor antigens, you could expand a T-cell population that would respond to the tumor."

When they punched the holes in the skin cells and grew them with extracts from T-cells, the new cells stopped expressing the genes that skin cells express, meaning they stopped acting like skin cells and started acting like T-cells.

Instead of harnessing an early stem cell whose genes have not yet been turned on, the team completley changed the cell's environment and thus changed the cells function.

What do you think?

 

Oh, dear!

This site actually allows you to interactively create your own clone! [face_shocked]

~PAd

 

i agree with cloning, one one part but diagree on a diffrent part..
cloning can be used for good..like for organs and stuff..
i agree with cloning aslong as it does not have anything to do with the brain......

 

KEDA,
I like your distiction between organs and the brain.

I am all for cloning individual organs such as eyes or a liver. Think of how much needless suffering could be averted if there wasn't such a long wait for transplants. After all, a mass of tissue is hardly a sentient being.

What scares me is the idea of growing complete bodies. Picture a host body that is used to grow limbs or oragns over and over again. It would be like the Precogs in Minority Report used for their organs. THAT idea would create a legal and ethical nightmare.

 

No, just kidding, but I think it's shortsightedness and stupid religous dogmatism that causes humanity to be held back at such an alarming rate.

No crap, I can see not to clone a being completely but stem cells? come one its not the middle ages anymore. we have the tool to help thousands if not millions of ill people. then why don't we. ? oh I remember.

 

I think cloning certain organs and stuff is a really great advancement, because you can help so many people who have cancer and other diseases and stuff. As for cloning humans and animals, I think cloning animals for some reasons is okay, but for humans, I mean, think about it. WAY too many freaking people on this Earth, that way.

But that reminds me of an article I read a few weeks ago on cloning dinosaur DNA. Here's a link if you're interested, by the way:

Can dinosaurs be cloned?


The article's pretty interesting, but I'd have to say it's like searching for a needle in a haystack. Hell, if someone wants to do that though, go ahead, I suppose. Just thought I post that to spark even more controversy over the whole cloning topic.

 

I am all for cloning individual organs such as eyes or a liver.
I think cloning certain organs and stuff is a really great advancement

The argument isn't that growing new organs would be such a bad thing. The problem is that in order to create those organs, scientists create embryos and kill them to harvest the stem cells. It becomes similar to the abortion debate, where the question is whether a human embryo is a human life with legal rights.


After all, a mass of tissue is hardly a sentient being.

When does a human acquire sentience? Is it somehow endowed at birth? Is it achieved within the womb at some stage during development? (How would you define "sentient"?)

 

scientists create embryos and kill them to harvest the stem cells. It becomes similar to the abortion debate, where the question is whether a human embryo is a human life with legal rights.

consider this: a women goes to one of thoes cinics to become pregnet..
the doc. tacks 15 egges and only uses 5..
the women has a baby..
know there are 10 left just siting in a frezzer being left there..
now if one of those 10 eges could be used to save a babys life becuase is has a hart problem would you say "NO" that egg has rights..
that baby right to.
the right to live..
i'm not saying, just tack the egg.
ask the women first if you could use the eggs, to save someones lif...
would you say yes?
i know i would

When does a human acquire sentience? Is it somehow endowed at birth? Is it achieved within the womb at some stage during development? (How would you define "sentient"?)

sentient means:
Alert
Aware
conscious
attentive
awake
responsive
unconscious
the fear of death..
every sentient organisum is afrade to die
you may say your afrade to die but every one is afrad to die at somepoint in there life
this is what makes a organisum sentient

 

Another human clone, another consumer.
Another 10,000 human clones, another 10,000 consumers.

 

As a person of faith I believe we all have a soul...

Where this fits into the world of clones I have no idea.