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The Forum > Article Comments > To clone or not to clone > Comments

To clone or not to clone : Comments

By David van Gend, published 16/1/2006

David van Gend argues cloning is both morally wrong and medically unnecessary.

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You are making false assumptions about me again, Al. I don't expect to exclude all people with a religious belief from decision making on behalf of all of us. But I am justifiably wary of "Catholic politicians, bureaucrats and academics etc, who to me are automatically suspect [on various matters] until they prove themselves capable of independent thought".

I've found the following website [it's a Catholic website, so hopefully you will accept its accuracy]:
http://www.cathnews.com/news/308/9.php

It's a little out-of-date, so some of the Catholic politicians mentioned may no longer be in parliament [Federal or NSW], but it appears likely that I would be prepared to trust the following to try to represent Australians in general, rather than obediently push the Pope's line:
Laurie Brereton---Labor.
Christopher Pyne---Liberal.
Barry O'Farrell---Liberal.
Charlie Lynn---Liberal.
Peter Wong---Uniting Party.
Clover Moore---Independant.
Peter Breen---Legal System Party.
[Politically, a nice mixed bag!]

By their refusal to express an opinion, I would not be prepared to trust Richard Alston, Kevin Andrews or Tony Abbott.

As you have pointed out, Catholics have regrettably suffered political oppression at various times and in various places. Surely this can give you an insight into why many [perhaps all] non-Catholics bitterly resent attempts to have the Pope's opinions forced onto them against their will.
Posted by Rex, Thursday, 26 January 2006 11:14:38 PM
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Rex, when you say "many [perhaps all] non-Catholcs bitterly resent attempts to have the Pope's opinions forced onto them against their will" you are giving in to the temptation to use emotive language.

There's an old saying: "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still". No one can force the Pope's or anyone else's opinion on anyone, short of gunpoint or physical intimidation. They might have stronger public opinion or support in the Government to overrule your own opinion, but that's different from 'forcing the Pope's opinion " on you.

I don't like the way the Gay lobby has gained privileges for its adherants, but I don't regard them as forcing their opinions on to me. I still have my opinions even though I've been overruled.

As I previously pointed out, other social, political and other forces have been running campaigns over the years. Do you call on the Homosexual lobby, Secular Humanists, Masons, Greens, and Marxists to "prove themselves capable of independent thought" as you would have the Catholic politicians, bureaucrats etc? I don't think so.

We both know that you are only interested in "kicking the Catholic can".
Posted by Big Al 30, Friday, 27 January 2006 7:38:37 PM
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You miss the point completely Al. No other worldwise institution, spends so much time and effort, through political means, to remove peoples rights. In various countries and at different levels, they have tried to deny people the right to use the pill, the right to use condoms, the right to get divorced, the right to an abortion, the rights of gays, etc. etc. It is none of their business and if they try to take away peoples rights, then it is my right to point out what a pathetic organisation they are.
Posted by Yabby, Friday, 27 January 2006 8:09:02 PM
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Opposition to cloning on moral grounds alone ain't enough to justify banning it.

Personally I can't wait for that banner headline -"Human Cloned" - to mark the day we emerge from superstitious ignorance, in thrall to moralists keen to regulate the behaviour of everyone else.

mor·al·ist
Function: noun
Definition: Someone convinced someone else is having fun.

Lots of contributors here quibble over whether it's necessary or not. Pray tell, what IS necessary? There's so much we don't need but thanks to science we have. Medical developments once considered immoral, such as blood transfusions, IVF and organ transplants, are now widely accepted, which to me suggests opposition to scientific endeavour is learned
Posted by bennie, Saturday, 28 January 2006 11:46:15 AM
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I look at the postings with puzzlement. Yabby is fixated on my being a Catholic, which I am not, and I fail to see why it matters. It is a strange backhand complement to the Catholic theory of life to imply that only Catholics will be moved by the dehumanisation inherent in creating offspring with no mother, no father, no place in the human family.

I respond only to Steve Madden’s erroneous claims (16 Jan) that SCNT is not cloning, and that the cloned embryo is not an embryo.

In the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 the definition of embryo clearly includes those made “by any means other than by the fertilisation of a human egg by human sperm”, specifying cloning techniques (SCNT) as one such means.

An embryo is an embryo no matter how it is made. Cloning is simply one way of making an embryo.

The campaign to dehumanise the cloned embryo is an international one, and Leon Kass, head of the US President's Council on Bioethics, pleaded for honesty in public discourse about cloning:

"If we are properly to evaluate the ethics of this research and where it might lead, we must call things by their right names and not disguise what is going on with euphemism or misleading nomenclature. The initial product of the cloning technique is without doubt a living cloned human embryo, the functional equivalent of a fertilised egg...” New York Times, May 29.

Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission, in its 1997 report Cloning Human Beings, explicitly stated:

"The Commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo, with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term."

Cloning creates a human embryo. Of that there must be no doubt and no deception. An embryo is an embryo no matter how you make it – naturally, by IVF, cloning (SCNT), parthenogenesis, whatever. They all have a life of their own. And it is wrong to create them with their destruction in mind
Posted by David van Gend, Sunday, 29 January 2006 3:10:39 PM
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"And it is wrong to create them with their destruction in mind"

That is simply your view and usually one pushed by the Godsquad.
So its a subjective opinion, no more.

My subjective opinion is that if organisms, even if human, can be used to get people out of wheelchairs, end ongoing concious suffering by other humans etc, then that is fantastic and should happen.
Thats a far more humanitarian philosophy then the religious dogma, which goes all the way back to Onan and the so called holy sperms
Posted by Yabby, Monday, 30 January 2006 9:35:36 PM
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