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EXAMPLE INTERVIEW 2 EXAMPLE INTERVIEW: 11th May 2000 Student's name: Heather ****** 1. What is the most important issue the government should address in a cloning bill? (1) The Government should not even be involved in this matter. They will simply put bureaucrats in the way of scientific progress. I strongly suggest you go to www.reason.com and read all the articles by Ronald Bailey. You will see a "search by author listing on the left side of the screen as you scroll down. The Government, at this time, has the option of funding research on stem cells. It faces fierce opposition from those who consider 100,000 frozen embryos due to be discarded anyway more important than the millions of fully grown ill human beings alive today. Note that, in the modest proposed legislation, the "permission" of those who created the embryos will be required and that no payment will be made for said embryos. Even this "modest" proposal is too much for religious fundamentalists who view life as beginning the instant that a cell divides once. This view ignores the fact that most embryos created in nature fail to attach to the womb wall and therefore are "born to die". This same issue tangled up the controversy over IVF. People said that "children should not be conceived in test tubes". Read Lori Andrews' book "The Clone Age" and you will see how the Federal Government was finally ready "to do an eight year study to see if IVF was feasible" in 1979. When Louise Brown, the first IVF baby was born. People discovered that their "fears" of test tube babies had only delayed the implication of IVF technology for about twenty-some years. I really don't want the same fate to fall to children conceived through cloning. We have an independent fertility industry in the USA today to which people come from all over the world because, in their home countries, seemingly sensible laws against "selling human eggs", etc., have made it impossible to obtain them. Medicine has regulated itself in the area of fertility. I believe that we will be better off if we continue to allow the medical professionals to monitor medicine. Science, including cloning and even genetically engineered foods, has become "politicized" these days and we are all the losers because of that fact. 2. What do you believe are the current public values and beliefs that underlie cloning and might create a bias one way or the other on the value of cloning? (2)The current "public values" underlying beliefs about cloning are a testimonial to what happens when the general public believes all the science fiction Hollywood produces. The public bias, based on everything from "Frankenstein" to "Brave New World" to "Multiplicity" to "Boys of Brazil", is totally negative. 3. As a politician, you need to get a feel for the U.S. public is feeling about cloning. What seems to be the mood of the people? Can you identify a difference in opinion in whole-body cloning vs. organ cloning? (3) I am NOT a politician. I do not lie. I do not bend with the wind. I am a "true believer" in truth. I fight for that every day. You ask about a "difference of opinion" regarding "whole-body-cloning vs. organ cloning". Yes, there is a great difference if you "understand" that we are talking about two distinct (but inseparatable) issues. "Whole body cloning" is an invalid concept. One creates a "later born twin" through cloning a person. No one here argues for growing human beings for body parts which is the idea implicit in your "whole body cloning" question. However, the basic technology of human cloning, nuclear transfer, is at the heart of the most promising medical breakthrough of the 20th Century. I'm so glad human stem cells were first isolated in late l998 so that discovery belongs to "my century" the 20th Century! This discovery makes it possible to create cultures of stem cells for any living person by "chopping up" (in Right-To-Life terms, killing) an embryo before its cells have commenced to differentiate. Once we have such a stem cell culture for a human being, if we can make those cells "differentiate" into the heart, kidney, liver, or any other 217 types of human cells, we can inject them into a patient and they will find their way to the damaged area and repair that area. We really won't need Federal funding and a bunch of ignorant politicians running science once the first biotech company, following the guideposts of mouse stem cell research, succeed in having human stem cells diversify into human heart cells that will go to a damaged heart and repair it. The "world" will line up at the door of that "private" company. Federal funding will no longer be an issue. That's the way it is in a free society! When that happens, you will find "public attitudes" will do a "fast reverse". They will be demanding the Federal Government fund every research project that promise a cure to whatever ails them or their loved ones. The slimy politicians will follow suit. By that time, history will have left "government" behind. The only "political question" will be how much "stem cell therapy" Medicare or Medicaid will pay for. There you have today's "facts of life". I have only answered your questions because they were new and different ones. I will post you questions to me and my answers on the "Frequently Asked Questions" bulletin board of the Human Cloning Foundation. Cloningly yours, Randolfe H. Wicker Director, Human Cloning Foundation www.humancloning.org Founder, Clone Rights United Front www.clonerights.com
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