Re: One step nearer to cloning a human being, etc

From: Susan Brassfield (Susan-Brassfield@ou.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 07 2000 - 12:41:15 EST

  • Next message: Ed.Babinski@furman.edu: "Religiosity and Divorce"

    >Steve quoted:
    >
    >"The Scottish company that created Dolly the Sheep, the
    >world's first cloned sheep, is close to producing the world's
    >first cloned pig, a breakthrough that moves scientists a step
    >closer to making an exact genetic copy of a human being…..
    >The ability to clone a pig, which is much more complicated
    >than a sheep for reasons that are not fully understood, also
    >takes scientists a step nearer to cloning a human. One
    >scientist commented: "Theoretically, we are closer to
    >cloning a person, but the bigger the animal the harder they
    >are to clone. We are still a very long way from cloning a
    >whole person."

    Mike Responded:

    >Who among you would want to be a clone? Who among you would
    >want to grow up as a clone?

    I think none. However, you can't speak for another person. I have read
    (somewhere) that this human cloning thing has two main pushes. 1. from
    people who have lost children, especially infants or small children. It's a
    way to have that exact child back from the grave. 2. from people who need
    organs. if you could clone just a *heart* or a *liver* ONLY(!) from your
    own cells it would be most useful.

    As for cloning a whole person, I agree, it's dicy ethically and in a world
    with 6 billion people, who needs it? If Einstein was 1 in a million there
    are 10,000 Chinese just as smart as he was.

    Susan

    ----------

    For if there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing
    of life as in hoping for another and in eluding the implacable grandeur of
    this one.
    --Albert Camus

    http://www.telepath.com/susanb/



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