this doctor is a psycho...he really scares me...i wouldn't want to be clone that's just creepy

I am not sure. While I think it's a good idea to clone human organs, so we can have them "stocked up" for if people need transplants, etc...it isn't really the same thing. From an ethical standpoint, there are a lot of cases in which people do not think cloning is ethical. I think it may end up causing harm to the cloned individual, who really isn't an individual at all. It't not like being someones twin...but more like an exact replica of another person who already exists -- leaving very little room to fully identify yourself. There is also the issue of people using a dead persons stem cells to create a "replica" of that person. Like a mourning mother and father who lost their daughter in a fatal car accident, then cloning her, and basically using their next child to replace the one they lost -- which is very unhealthy for all parties involved.

While I think it is cool, I think for now it would cause more harm than good to clone human beings. I am all for harvesting the organs though, the lives that would be saved could go up immensely.

I think you have to draw a line when science starts replacing nature.

This reminds of that movie Godsend. Freaky movie wear the parents cloned there dead son and when the kid reached the age that he died he started getting weird and remembering is former life.
I don't think that cloning humans is a good idea at all or even cloning pets for that matter. I do support cloning for the purpose of replacing organs and other body parts. I read an article recently that in the somewhat near future dentists will be able to replace your teeth by implanting a "bud" into your jaw that will grow a replacement tooth. Now that is cool!

I think science is amazing, but its also very scary. All I know is that I'm going to put in my will "DO NOT CLONE ME!!!" just so i'm not cloned... i mean, if they can do it and people want it, then its ok... but i dont think they should go around cloning everything and everyone... then its going to be a little scary... we're all going to end up looking like the same thing...

hey then if you think about it, we wont need to make babies anymore (which is our only purpose, other than taking care of the world) so then gays and lesbians will probably be more predominant in society and will have more rights... so thats pretty cool (based on the sense that many people disagree with it because they can't "reproduce" together.)

I think there isn't anything good about cloning humans. I can understand why some would say okay to it for harvesting organs, but I don't like that, either - that is a person that the organs would be coming from. It doesn't matter if he/she is a clone or not.

I'm with you Tres! This is beyond creepy!

i think chrstne is referring to the growing of organs (separate from people), not taking organs from actual human beings.

I see nothing wrong with cloning humans. However, I do think that parents of a dead child who have it cloned will find that the clone is not the "same" child, and that could end badly for everyone involved. Just think of how different identical twins can be...

i say go for it, if someone wants to clone their dead child or other family member then why not??

We need laws now... not when it is too late.

Christne, identical twins and clones alike have the exact same DNA. So it is like being someone's twin. But I'll give you that when you are brought up as an identical twin you are the same age and actively encouraged to be different in many cases. When you are different ages with your clone, you might feel like you have to follow in their footsteps or at least see your future in them.

Yes, it's kinda creepy, and yes, I don't think it's wise to start cloning humans, BUT I don't think we should "stop science from moving forward" like Tres suggested. I think we can learn a lot from these experiments (that we haven't already with the animal cloning), and it would be great if this technology did exist. Not to use it to make babies, of course, but just to understand scientifically what it takes to replicate an embryo. It might help us in the future when we are trying to replicate organs/cells/body parts for people.

i find this very unsettling. i'm just imagining in another hundred years or so, when people are saying, "remember those days when people came into existence the natural way? how old-fashioned! HA!"

anyway, i am immediately going to the google the tooth bud thing. that's something i can get behind, with my mouth full of cavities and bridges.

no..this is just wrong.

Just say no to cloning.
But there is money to be made. It will happen.

Creepy. Will it come off as cheesy if I say you can't duplicate the human soul?

But there's at least a dozen scientists worldwide that claim they've ALREADY successfully cloned human beings, so this isn't really anything knew. And I'm sure bioethicists knew human cloning was imminent...and as strong a reaction there is against it, I'm not sure it will even be that popular, should this become commercial. Not to mention legal channels [can we clone famous dead people? Who gets to decide that? Who's in charge of exhuming the body? Who is legally responsible for any cloned person, people that decide to raise him/her or the scientist that "created" them? ], those will get very sticky quickly.

But the solution isn't to stop science from moving forward entirely...just make humans and human DNA off-limits. I mean, it can't be that great of a thing - look at what happened to Dolly.
There are some ethical boundaries we should have in science, but that doesn't stop it from moving forward - we need new developments, just not in this area.

I'd say 'no' to human cloning. That's a scary prospect, imho.

It's been a while since I took biology and I haven't studied cloning, but wouldn't a clone simply have the same DNA? It's just a way of artificially producing a being. The clone would still be an individual (and in that way, he/she would have a 'soul'... what about natural birth gives someone a soul?)... I mean, those dogs that were cloned didn't even have identical markings, did they? What about nurture vs. nature? It's all very interesting, but is it ethical?

Instead of cloning your dead child, why not just get a robot? We have the technology...

Sick. SICK! S-I-C-K!!!!!!!!

This is what needs to be regulated in science. By regulated, I mean stopped. The only thing that can be considered positive is to develope another human being to be used to harvest parts from, or to replace a loved one that has passed away. In both cases, very selfish.

i think it would be INCREDIBLY unsettling to clone your dead child.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no matter what side of the abortion debate you fall on, I think both sides in general find something really "wrong" and unethical about Human Cloning.

".....if someone wants to clone their dead child or other family member then why not??"

There is a lot of stuff people want to do when a loved one dies that doesn't mean it's a wise or logical thing to do. Your mental state could be in question, and we don't tend to let people who are "mentally compromised" make decisions about medical care so why should we with something like cloning?? And unless the deceased has given the okay to be "replicated" then it shouldn't be done.

By the way this is coming from someone who has worked in Science for 10 years so I believe in since, but I also believed that there should be limits to it as well. There is such a thing as Ethics in the scientific fields.

When scientists cloned the first animal we all knew (or at least we should have all known) that one day a human would be cloned. Whether it's government sanctioned or in some some underground private laboratory hidden away from public scrutiny there is no question in my mind that as sure as the sky is blue one day a human will be cloned.

I'm going to sound like a total paranoid geek here, but what the hey... What gets me most about human cloning isn't necessarily the idea of clones existing, their rights and their creator's responsibility to them, although I am concerned about all of the above, but I worry about the probability for genetic manipulation. I know this is a bit off-topic, but I think genetic manipulation will be far more challenging to the human race than cloning.

Most people seem to inherently feel that cloning is wrong, but when does genetic manipulation become wrong? Most people wouldn't object to correcting 'true' genetic defects, such as correcting cancer or asthma genomes, but I saw recently that you can now have your fetus tested for what color eyes & hair the baby will have when born, as well as their potential for specific activities like sports. We can't change those things yet, but it won't be long before we can. And once you move from medical/disease genetic manipulation to cosmetic, how long until you have people requesting their fetuses be manipulated to be smarter, stronger and faster than they were otherwise naturally intended to be? And where does that leave us regular people?

I can't help but to think of the movie Gattica.

fcseamstress you bring up an EXCELLENT point!
And to that point there is a field call Bioethnics.

As a someone who works in science it's all about what is the purpose for a Gene to be maipulated if it's to cure a diease in a willing particpant it is typically widely acceptable, but if it's to make you a "better" person then that's another issue. Much like plastic sugery when it is done to correct a defect/injury cleft palette/burn then it's in general people seem to be okay with it, but when it is done for purly vanity reason it calls out moral questions.

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/bioethics

Gattica is completely what I had in mind! My hubby thinks I'm crazy, but every time I read about genetic advancements I swear that's where we're heading! He recently made me watch The 6th Day. It's really cheesy, but totally up this alley with cloning and stuff.

I'll have to get the 6th day. I've never seen it. I kinda like cheesy once in a while.

What is the difference between cloning humans and animals? You don't clone a "soul," "spirit," or "personality."
Creepy yes, but unethical- I don't think so.