Can anyone come up with a non-religious argument for why it is morally wrong to clone a consenting human?

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Originally posted by trancaholic Can anyone come up with a non-religious argument for why it is morally wrong to clone a consenting human?

let me guess. you also believe that there's no non-religious argument against abortion either?

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quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic Can anyone come up with a non-religious argument for why it is morally wrong to clone a consenting human?

At a moment because cloned entities are prone to diseases and genetic defects. There, I came up with one

As for abortion, that's a different thing, there are plenty of non-religious arguments against it.

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Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 At a moment because cloned entities are prone to diseases and genetic defects. There, I came up with one

Ok, any non-practical non-religious arguments?

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Originally posted by Lepanto let me guess. you also believe that there's no non-religious argument against abortion either?

I don't see the connection - it would appear to me that the two issues are of a totally different nature. Anyway, to answer your question: I have no problems seeing non-religious arguments against abortion.

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Originally posted by trancaholic Ok, any non-practical non-religious arguments?

Theres not much sense in arguing something that isn't practical. The technology and (personally, I think) modern civilization aren't mature enough to handle such a thing as complete human cloning. Maybe sometime in the future they will be. Like most things we'll probably ease into it. I don't really have a problem with them cloning human organs and growing them inside animals.

But there certainly isn't any shortage of literature or film that hasn't already tackled most of these questions.

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Originally posted by trancaholic Can anyone come up with a non-religious argument for why it is morally wrong to clone a consenting human?

I think the ethical dilemma arises with what you do with the clone, not the actual cloning process. Personally I see nothing wrong with cloning so long as the clones are afforded the same rights as regular humans.

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I guess this isn't really an argument per se but I'm not in favour of anything unatural. Seems pretty creepy. Plus, I'm sure it would suck to have no parents/family tree whatsoever (assuming we would be capable of cloning an entire human). It would be kind of like forced orphanage.

What's the point of cloning anyways? (other than perhaps cloning body parts for transplant, but even that a freaky concept to me). What are your views Trancaholic?

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Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
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I think this is one of the issue which will start to expose the fact that we are actually just a product of our parts nothing more. And that our high level interactions, relationships and so on, are simply caused by low level interactions (between molecules and so on downwards).

Because in reality our "morals" are just a form of programming which some (all people?) people can ignore in the face of the correct situation.

Or a better example how easy is it to dehumanise a human? For some "race" is enough. For others faith. Or even to just give another label, just tag them as "inhuman" because they are diffent. And bang all those morals are instantly negated.

Pretty shakey illusion really. But again if I truely belive that why do I function just normally? Well if a light bulb knew it was just a light bulb wouldn't it still trn on and off if you flicked the switch? In effect my point exactly. The debate against them is shaky because our morals are shaky. When it suits us our morals will fit.

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Sorry, I really don't have too much intellectualism to add tonight. Too many finals goin' on.......

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quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic I don't see the connection - it would appear to me that the two issues are of a totally different nature. Anyway, to answer your question: I have no problems seeing non-religious arguments against abortion.

i meant to say there are alot of reasons why cloning is seen as a taboo, i suppose you could call it that. however, my point was that alot of people claim there are no logical reasons for anti-abortion and there are tons.

i, however, support cloning of cells and organs COMPLETELY and unconditionally.

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Originally posted by trancaholic Ok, any non-practical non-religious arguments?

Hm, well ultimately excessive cloning of a few selected individuals might reduce the gene pool variety and make the human race more prone to epidemic outbreaks. Additionally, excessive cloning of a particular group of people may turn the whole society into a narrower and more single-minded set and therefore lead to various social problems. Say, government can insist on cloning many intrinsically pacifist people so that they can do whatever they want and the majority of the population is ok with it. You may also end up with an excess population of a particular undesireable group of people (egomaniacs come to mind as first people who would want to have more copies of themselves around, something most other people wouldn't really agree with). So I am not really for copying already alive people, although I am for other uses, like taking good genes from living people and using them to repair or improve bad genes in other people. And I feel pretty confident that the focus of cloning technology is regrowing tissue and repairing genetic defects, and not making multiple copies of people.

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Originally posted by trancaholic Can anyone come up with a non-religious argument for why it is morally wrong to clone a consenting human?

How about because there are already way too many useless people on earth as it is? The last thing we need is a clone of them!