It Is Time To Ban All Human Cloning

FreeRepublic ^ | 2/27/2003 | MHGinTN

[Calpernia]

>>>>"If a thing is wrong, immoral, or unethical, should we pursue it anyway because others are doing so?" No, I am not a promoter of "All the other kids are doing it" theory when it comes to raising my kids. BUT, I think it is information our Intel needs to stay on top of. Bioweapons is immoral, unethical and wrong. And look how much we compromised ourselves. 3rd world countries with dictators and socialism are dangerous. Not having information because it is immoral can be MORE dangerous. Should we clone as a practice? No. Should Intel do what it needs to do to gather data? I think so. I really can't explain myself further on this. I have NO idea what these power hungery, unethical so called leaders can or would do with this cloning thing. Then again, my mind doesn't work like that. Can it ever be used as a threat to us here? I have no idea. Can this ever hurt us here? I have no idea. But, that is why data is needed.

[hocndoc]

What is the purpose of research with adult and umbilical chord stem cells? Wouldn't it be for the production of organs or to allow regeneration of organs?

The controversy is over the source of the stem cells.

Cloning of organs is separate from the cloning of organisms. The research is in the earliest stages. Here's an article about injected adult stem cells:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=571&ncid=571&e=2&u=/nm/20030219/hl_nm/stem_cells_dc_1



Dr. Maren Ruhnke said the goal of future research would be to develop similar techniques that can be used in human organ transplants.

Although most transplant patients are given powerful immune-suppressing drugs, the medication has side effects and does not always prevent the recipient's immune system from attacking the organ.

""Ruhnke told Reuters Health that in the past only embryonic stem cells had been used in similar transplantation experiments. Embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos, and human embryonic stem cells have become mired in controversy. Adult stem cells can be found in bone marrow or circulating in blood, and are generally less controversial than those found in embryos--although they do not necessarily have the same properties.

In the as-yet-unpublished German study, stem cells were taken from bone marrow of adult rats, whose hearts were later removed for transplantation into rats of different strains, she said.

The bone marrow cells were cultured and then injected into transplant recipient rats, some of which lived over 100 days without rejecting the transplanted heart.""

The definitions given in the report are pertaining *organisms* not organs.

It's not worth the fuss, Marvin.

The fuss should be over the origin of the cells: does it cause the death of the donor?

[MHGinTN]

Can we collect intel without doing the cloning of individual human life? I don't have the answers either, Calpernia. I commend you for asking.

[Calpernia]

Hey, like I said, I don't like this whole "I can play God" technology myself. But think of countries like China. I saw an article somewhere that they were trying to inject an elephant with froze sperm/dna from a mammoth. Will that ever hurt us specifically? Maybe not. But people without morals can be more dangerous when you turn your head.

[Porterville]

I all for cloning. Clone away, "damn the torpedos full steam ahead".

[MHGinTN]

What is described in the article is not cloning of organs. I apologize for being so insistent, hocndoc. As you say, the issue is definitely 'from what source the stem cells originate'. If an organ is grown from a person's own stem cells, without going through the stage of cloning an embryo copy, then this is not cloning, it is replication and manipulation of the pluripotent/multipotent cells found in the patient's own body. THAT methodology I'm all for, because it holds the greatest promise for replacement organs with histocompatibility, without human embryonic cloning which is cannibalism.

[Porterville]

Uh-hem, that's "I'm all for cloning," I'm also for trying to write well. Screw it," Damn the gramatics, full posting ahead!!!"

[RightWhale]

Will that keep our knowledge behind other countries

Good question.

Seems like a lot of cloning research is already happening in other countries. But, cloning is not new and has been in use in the plant kingdom for a long time. Just as NASA's mission statement is to attain and preserve pre-eminence in space, so, perhaps, there is an agency somewhere in the innerds of government that is charged to be at the forefront of animal kingdom cloning research--it's just that it is not well-known to the general public.

We might imagine that it is possible to be pre-eminent in animal cloning without resorting to human cloning.

[cpforlife.org]

If only our culture’s morality and faith could keep up with our advancements of science and technology.... Sorry, I’m FREEPing daydreaming.

[MHGinTN]

In the interest of apologizing to you, if that is warranted, I would respectfully ask if your notion of organ cloning has in it a stage whereby a cloned embryo is harvested for stem cells. If not, I would respectfully ask that you direct me to the research where such is being accomplished without the embryonic stage. And if organ cloning is accomplished sans embryo cloning with stem cell harvesting from a cloned embryo, I apologize profusely to you and to hocndoc.

This is getting series, fellow freepers.

[MHGinTN]

Here is a case in point, to illustrate the confusion so easily overpowering some:

China's Human Organ Cloning (From a Chinese science news source) "Pei Xuetao,a Chinese scientist studying stem cells disclosed on January 8, 2001 that the research team led by him had cloned human tissues with stem cell techniques and his team would soon go into human organ cloning. Pei expressed that Chinese scientists observe the internationally acknowledged norms for no-human-being-cloning, though human organ cloning has become an orientation encouraged by in ternational S&T communities. Up to date, the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences have cloned human bones, blood, nerves and skins outside the human body. In the near future, it will dive into more sophisticated cloning such as blood vessel, esophagus and bladder. If the experiment goes smoothly, Chinese scientists will be able to clone the human organs that may replace the damaged ones in human body.

It is reported that China has so far mastered the techniques of separating, purifying, freezing and recovering the stem cells of umbilical blood. Experts wish they may create a sample bank storing 50,000 to 100,000 stem cells of umbilical blood by 2002, the largest one in the world so as to provide stem cell transplanting for the Chinese of similar genetic properties all over the world."

########### The key to this is, the article says organ cloning, but the sources for the stem cells from which organs/tissues are to be grown are human cloned embryos. Could you know that from the way the article is worded? I don't think so, but digging deeper, to source the article, I find that the embryo is not considered a human, in China, so they don't bother to even note that the source of the histocompatible stem cells are embryos cloned for that harvesting purpose.

[185JHP]

Time to squash this thing - before it leads to horrors like slavery. "Owned clones" - "I brought them to life, they're mine to do with as I wish." Erstwhile beasts have thoght of this...

[MHGinTN]

The following is excerpt from an essay at Concerned Women Of America, 2/27/2003. The excerpt shows why it is essential to be very clear regarding the term 'human cloning' or cloning of embryos:

(Concerning competing bills in the Senate) Which bill will ban human cloning?

The Hatch/Specter/Feinstein/Kennedy/Harkin bill is a fraud that claims to ban cloning while in fact allowing cloning to continue. It claims that therapeutic cloning does not produce a human embryo, yet the bill prohibits the implantation of this very cloned embryo. If it were not an embryo, implanting it would not result in a newborn baby. This bill would turn humans into commodities.

[185JHP]

Thanks for your efforts. "I am only one, still I am one. I can't do everything, but I can do something. And what I can do, I should do. And with the help of the Lord God Almighty, I will."

[MHGinTN]

!

[MHGinTN]

We are an individual human being first at conception and remain an individual human being until death, artificially or naturally arrived at, along the continuum that is an individual human life in the body begun at conception.

[MHGinTN]

BTTT ... for anyone in New Jersey that cares to read it.

[ApesForEvolution]

Heads Up! The AMA terrorists have spoken!

[MHGinTN]

This makes me literally shudder! When coupled with the essay on embryonic human beings, I'm horrified at the prospect of these ill informed legislators doing this evil ... in a state that professes to be mostly Catholic!

[MHGinTN]

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