Is Human Cloning Easier Than Thought?

The Angry Clam writes "Yahoo has this story about how human beings might be easier to clone than sheep like the (in)famous Dolly. Since most of the "cloning is unethical" arguments hinge upon the high rate of defectives produced during attempts to create Dolly, I wonder what this will mean for things like the Cloning Ban, that Italian doctor, and so forth."

Re:Possible downside

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we accelerate or atleast emulate adolescent growth? I'm sure it is possible but that is a lot of technology.

Thoughts on Cloning

[The Angry Clam]

Yes, I admit I waited until my own story got posted to put this up, but it's something I have a personal stake in so I feel strongly about it. See, here's what I find interesting about this whole thing. Like this [savethehumans.com] parody says, people are just plain afraid of cloning. I don't understand why. Here's my personal objections to some of the arguements made against research into human cloning.

1. Cloning has too high a failure rate, and the destruction of all the zygotes/embryos and/or the birth defects make it immoral to clone at this time. The problem I have with this is that it runs up into the old pro/anti-abortion argument over when a fetus becomes a person. Since the prevailing legal belief over the status of an unborn fetus in the USA is that it is not a full human being and does not have the rights of a human being, I believe this argument must be rejected.

2. It is not right to decide for the fetus when it will be born. (or some other permutation of the "We shouldn't be playing God" argument). See, here we go again trying to define this little cloned fetus as a person. However, this case is a bit different, since it assumes that the fetus will be carried to term and born. My resonse is that since this is built entirely out of my own DNA, that it is as much my right to decide what to do with it as it is my right to be or to decline to be an organ donor, since those organs are pieces of my body as well. The interesting question is, of course, "then what happens when it's born? Will it be a slave, since it is, in a real sense, yours? Or will it be free, and then what does that mean for people who refuse medical treatments or refuse to be donors?" All of which are, indeed, tricky problems.

3. This research takes us into realms we've never been before and should be stopped. I've actually heard this one. To which I respond, where is the sense of adventure? Of discovery? Sure there will be casulties, but for what good? Imagine if people didn't explore medicine because it was "playing God with who lives and dies" or if they never bothered to see what lay beyond deserts or oceans because it was a place they'd never been before, or if we halted all space exploration because we were afraid of meeting an alien which would make us question our place in the Universe! I say bring it on! These are part of the neverending quest of humanity to discover and explore, and should not, and must not, be denied by the small-minded politicians in Congress.