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Re: attitude
SC ( 10/25/2003, 05:15:25 )I know plenty of fine people who have similar attitudes to yours; for instance, they often say that they approve of the use of cloning or related methods to treat disease, but not to treat infertility. However, these people are not seeking to have their views challenged in a public forum. It appears to me that you must be looking for a way to change your views or you wouldn't be here. Therefore, I have been asking you and prodding you and provoking you to give me an answer that those people have so far been unable to give. Yes, that's asking a lot. But I've been providing a lot. Arguments presented by people who've let themselves be overwhelmed by hysteria are a dime a dozen.You live in a country that historically been a leader in democratic progress, and is still a leader as far as that progress is related to cloning. The portion of that country in which you live is the home of some of the most important advances related to improving the length and quality of people's lives (the Nanog gene, for instance, was co-discovered by a Scottish man, and is named for a place in Celtic mythology). You're also young enough that you could live to see the results of such research come to full fruition. In these respects, you are extremely privileged. Whatever influences people to change their minds about cloning, I might be more likely to see it happen with you than with someone else. Other people don't have the same privileges you do. They will live or die, be healthy or sick, depending on which way and how quickly public opinion shifts on this issue. I asked you the questions I did because you had just asked me some questions whose answers were already known to you. I saw you as being lazy, so I challenged you to do more, because there are people out there who need you to do more. Maybe you were trying to say something to me that wasn't what got into type; I don't know.I doubt if anyone wants to ban research that would lead to a treatment for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, arthritis, damaged organs, spinal cord injuries, and so on. Nobody's gone on a campaign to try to stop the development of a treatment for any one of these conditions. But when something comes along that could fix all of them, and a few other things as well, suddenly people are up in arms. Why should cloning and the technologies related to it require any defense?If you want to live a life of the standard length at the standard level of health available today, you have nothing to worry about. Nobody's going to hold you at gunpoint and force you to live longer. I have argued in defense of cloning because it is tied to the notion of equality of opportunity. Banning it would make a lot of people equal, but wouldn't provide much opportunity. Equality of opportunity means everyone should have the choice to use something that would be of great health benefit. It doesn't mean that everyone's going to actually use it, or be required to. Not everyone eats healthy foods or exercises either.Stem cell research seems to be providing a great deal of benefit to people, and advancing at a rapid pace, but if something else can do better, I'm all for it. "Pro-cloning" implies to me that I favor cloning over other things whether they're better or not, which is not accurate. There have been a lot of advances lately which don't actually involve cloning as most people understand it. However, the adjustments people will have to make to accept that something good can happen will, I expect, be the same no matter what the improvement is.
This Message is being posted for educational purposes, as well as for comment and criticism, by the visitors to the HumanCloning.org Foundation website (www.HumanCloning.org ).
Disclaimer: Information provided on this web site is for educatonal purposes only. It is not a substitute for, nor can it replace advice from your own physician.
HumanCloning.org™ Established December 11, 2002.
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