The Mail Rolls in…

Wow. My cloning position has inflamed the ire of the entire intarweebs.

From Lizzie T.: 

A “man” referencing a woman’s right to choose is ludicrous. Take your quasi-evangelical conservative viewpoints and shove them up your ass.

That’s about what I expect from the feminist movement. 

From Gerda541:

In one essay you come out as pro-life and pro-cloning? I’ve never heard a more inconsistent position in my life. Does being listed on a Libertarian blog list mean that you’re crazy?

I thought I was pretty clear that the argument is made from the standpoint of viability. Scientifically, those embryos weren’t even potential humans; they were just cells in a laboratory. Put those cells in a uterus and we’re talking about something completely different. 

From JohnStone77:

While I can appreciate your stance on abortion and your attempts to link the arguments of abortion and cloning, I can’t believe that you could possibly reconcile the two in the way that you have. If being a scientist means that you have to be willing to create abominations, I might have to change my major.

Once you get your M.S. in any biology or chemistry field from an reputable institution, you sign a contract in blood that you will create a Frankenstein monster within the first ten years of your career. If that bothers you, go be a lawyer and justify chasing ambulances to your family at night.

Juliana K. writes:

Thanks providing an objective viewpoint on the issues of both human cloning and abortion. I consider myself to be pro-life, but your arguments regarding the potential for medical advancement leave me wondering if it is possible to control the technology in such a manner that we avoid ethical issues. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this in a future essay.

I suppose I wasn’t too clear on this. Provided these “clones” don’t proceed beyond a certain stage of development and that their viability (from a physiological and chemical standpoint) remains nil, I am perfectly okay with using this type of technique as a means to culture stem cells. 

Boris420:

Whatever dude. The clone has no soul and with no soul thre [sic] is no expresion [sic] of art or the human conditon [sic]. I dont [sic] want a bunch of souless [sic] clones running around.

Been hitting the bong a little hard, Boris? I think Blitz says it nicely in the first comment of the previous thread. Mankind is not responsible for parking a soul in a living organism. We may be messing around with the mechanics of life, but we’re certainly not creating it. 

Bonnie H. writes:

Your science degrees may be reputable, but you learned ethics from the back of a cracker-jack box. In your world, you’ve have clone banks that would be harvested for organs on demand. What about the potential that each of those HUMANS would have? They may have identical DNA, but they are not YOU and they have as much right to life as anyone else.

That’s a nice slippery-slope fallacy there. I would expect there to be organ banks. What I mean by this is that a sample of my cells is taken and they selectively grow tissues and organs, not entire people. I agree that what you describe is terrible (and also the subject of a bad Bruckheimer film called The Island).

These were some of the highlights of the fifty some-odd praises, criticisms, etc. that I’ve received over the past day. Keep them coming, but moreover, feel free to post comments. Provided you continue to attack issues (and not people), I’ll pretty much let any comment stand.