Sam Vaknin There are two types of cloning. cardinal involves harvesting stem cells from embryos ("therapeutic cloning"). These are the begotten equivalent of a template. They can develop into some kind of matured functional cell and thus help cure many degenerative and auto-immune diseases. The other kind of cloning is untold derided in best-selling culture - and elsewhere - as the harbinger of a Brave, spic-and-span World. A nucleus from any cell of a donor is embedded in an egg whose own nucleus has been removed. The egg is past implanted in a woman's womb and a cloned baby is born cardinal months later. Biologically, the cloned infant is a replica of the donor. Cloning is often confused with opposite advances in bio-medicine and bio-engineering - such as heritable selection. It cannot - in itself - be old to produce "perfect humans" or superior sex or opposite traits. Hence, whatsoever of the arguments against cloning are either specious or fuelled by ignorance. It is true, though, that cloning, used in conjunction with other bio-technologies, raises serious bio-ethical questions. Scare scenarios of humans tamed in sinister labs as sources of spare body parts, "designer babies", "master races", or "genetic sex slaves" - formerly the preserve of B sci-fi movies - have invaded mainstream discourse. Still, cloning touches upon Mankind's most basic fears and hopes. It invokes the most untamed ethical and clean-living dilemmas. As an inevitable result, the debate is often more passionate than informed. I. far to Life Arguments According to cloning's detractors, the nucleus removed from the egg could other have developed into a human being. Thus, removing the nucleus amounts to murder. It is a fundamental principle of most clean-living theories that complete human beings have a right to life. The existence of a far implies obligations or duties of ordinal parties towards the right-holder. One has a right AGAINST other people. The fact that cardinal possesses a definite right - prescribes to others definite obligatory behaviours and proscribes certain acts or omissions. This Janus-like nature of rights and duties as two sides of the unvarying ethical coin - creates great confusion. People often and easily confuse rights and their related duties or obligations with the morally decent, or equal with the morally permissible. What cardinal MUST do as a result of another's right - should never be confused with cardinal SHOULD or OUGHT to do morally (in the absence of a right). The right to life has cardinal distinct strains: IA. The right to be brought to life IB. The right to be born IC. The right to have one's life preserved ID. The far not to be killed IE. The right to have one's life reclaimed IF. The far to save one's life (erroneously restricted to the far to self-defence) IG. The right to terminate one's life IH. The far to have one's life terminated IA. The Right to be Brought to Life Only live people have rights. There is a debate whether an egg is a living person - but there can be no doubt that it exists. Its rights - whatever they are - derive from the fact that it exists and that it has the potential to develop life. The right to be brought to life (the right to become or to be) pertains to a yet non-alive entity and, therefore, is null and void. Had this right existed, it would have implicit an obligation or duty to give life to the unborn and the not yet conceived. No such duty or obligation exist. IB. The far to be foaled The right to be born crystallizes at the moment of voluntary and intentional fertilization. If a scientist knowingly and intentionally causes in vitro fertilization for the definite and express purpose of creating an embryo - past the resulting fertilized egg has a right to matured and be born. Furthermore, the foaled child has complete the rights a child has against his parents: food, shelter, emotional nourishment, education, and so on. It is debatable whether much rights of the fetus and, later, of the child, exist if there was no constructive act of fertilization - but, on the contrary, an act which prevents possible fertilization, much as the removal of the nucleus (see IC below). IC. The far to Have One's Life Maintained Does one have the right to maintain one's life and prolong them at other people's expense? Does one have the right to use other people's bodies, their property, their time, their resources and to deprive them of pleasure, comfort, incarnate possessions, income, or any other thing? The answer is yes and no. No one has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or prolong them at another INDIVIDUAL's expense (no matter how minimal and insignificant the sacrifice required is). Still, if a contract has been autographed - implicitly or explicitly - between the parties, past such a far may crystallize in the contract and create corresponding duties and obligations, moral, as well as legal. Example: No fetus has a right to sustain its life, maintain, or prolong them at his mother's expense (no matter how minimal and insignificant the sacrifice required of her is). Still, if she signed a contract with the fetus - by knowingly and willingly and intentionally conceiving it - much a right has crystallized and has created corresponding duties and obligations of the mother towards her fetus. On the other hand, everyone has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or prolong them at SOCIETY's expense (no matter how starring and significant the resources required are). Still, if a contract has been signed - implicitly or explicitly - between the parties, then the abrogation of such a right may crystallize in the contract and create commensurate duties and obligations, moral, as healed as legal. Example: Everyone has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or prolong them at society's expense. in the public eye hospitals, state pension schemes, and police forces may be required to fulfill society's obligations - but fulfill them it must, no matter how starring and significant the resources are. Still, if a person volunteered to join the army and a contract has been signed between the parties, past this right has been thus abrogated and the separate assumed certain duties and obligations, including the duty or obligation to give up his or her life to society. ID. The Right not to be Killed Every person has the right not to be killed unjustly. What constitutes "just killing" is a matter for an ethical calculus in the framework of a social contract. But does A's right not to be killed include the right against third parties that they refrain from enforcing the rights of other people against A? Does A's right not to be killed preclude the righting of wrongs wrapped up by A against others - equal if the righting of such wrongs means the humorous of A? Not so. There is a moral obligation to right wrongs (to restore the rights of opposite people). If A maintains or prolongs his life single by violating the rights of others and these opposite people object to it - past A must be killed if that is the single way to far the wrong and re-assert their rights. This is doubly true if A's existence is, at best, debatable. An egg does not a human being make. Removal of the nucleus is an important step in life-saving research. An unfertilized egg has no rights at all. IE. The Right to Have One's Life Saved There is no such far as there is no corresponding clean-living obligation or duty to save a life. This "right" is a demonstration of the same muddle between the morally commendable, in demand and decent ("ought", "should") and the morally obligatory, the result of opposite people's rights ("must"). In some countries, the obligation to save life is legally codified. But while the law of the overland may create a LEGAL right and corresponding LEGAL obligations - it does not always or necessarily create a moral or an ethical right and corresponding moral duties and obligations. IF. The Right to Save One's personal Life The far to self-defence is a subset of the more overall and all-pervasive far to save one's own life. cardinal has the far to take definite actions or avoid taking certain actions in order to save his or her own life. It is generally accepted that cardinal has the far to kill a pursuer who knowingly and intentionally intends to take one's life. It is debatable, though, whether one has the right to kill an innocent person who unknowingly and unintentionally threatens to take one's life. IG. The far to Terminate One's Life See "The Murder of Oneself". IH. The far to Have One's Life Terminated The right to euthanasia, to have one's life terminated at will, is unfree by numerous social, ethical, and sanctioned rules, principles, and considerations. In a nutshell - in many countries in the West cardinal is thought to has a far to have one's life terminated with the help of third parties if one is active to die shortly anyway and if one is active to be sorrowful and humiliated by great and enervating agony for the rest of one's remaining life if not helped to die. Of course, for one's wish to be helped to die to be accommodated, cardinal has to be in sound mind and to will one's death knowingly, intentionally, and forcefully. II. Issues in the Calculus of Rights IIA. The Hierarchy of Rights All human cultures have hierarchies of rights. These hierarchies reflect cultural mores and lores and there cannot, therefore, be a universal, or eternal hierarchy. In Western clean-living systems, the far to Life supersedes all other rights (including the far to one's body, to comfort, to the avoidance of pain, to property, etc.). Yet, this hierarchical arrangement does not help us to resolve cases in which there is a clash of EQUAL rights (for instance, the conflicting rights to life of cardinal people). One way to decide among equally potent claims is randomly (by flipping a coin, or casting dice). Alternatively, we could add and subtract rights in a somewhat macabre arithmetic. If a mother's life is vulnerable by the continuing existence of a fetus and forward both of them have a far to life we can decide to kill the fetus by adding to the mother's far to life her right to her own body and thus outweighing the fetus' right to life. IIB. The Difference between humorous and Letting Die There is an assumed difference between killing (taking life) and letting die (not saving a life). This is supported by IE above. While there is a far not to be killed - there is no far to have one's own life saved. Thus, while there is an obligation not to kill - there is no obligation to save a life. IIC. Killing the Innocent Often the continued existence of an innocent person (IP) threatens to take the life of a victim (V). By "innocent" we mean "not guilty" - not responsible for humorous V, not intending to kill V, and not informed that V will be killed repayable to IP's actions or continued existence. It is uncomplicated to decide to kill IP to save V if IP is active to die anyway shortly, and the remaining life of V, if saved, will be untold longer than the remaining life of IP, if not killed. All opposite variants require a calculus of hierarchically weighted rights. (See "Abortion and the Sanctity of hominian Life" by Baruch A. Brody). One form of calculus is the functional theory. It calls for the maximization of utility (life, happiness, pleasure). In other words, the life, happiness, or pleasure of the many outweigh the life, happiness, or pleasure of the few. It is morally permissible to kill IP if the lives of two or much people will be saved as a result and there is no opposite way to save their lives. Despite strong philosophical objections to some of the premises of utilitarian theory - I agree with its practical prescriptions. In this context - the dilemma of killing the innocent - cardinal can also call upon the far to self defence. Does V have a right to kill IP heedless of any clean-living calculus of rights? Probably not. cardinal is rarely even in taking another's life to save one's own. But such behaviour cannot be condemned. present we have the flip side of the confusion - understandable and perhaps inevitable behaviour (self defence) is wrong for a clean-living RIGHT. That most V's would kill IP and that we would complete sympathize with V and understand its behaviour does not mean that V had a far to kill IP. V may have had a far to kill IP - but this right is not automatic, nor is it all-encompassing. But is the Egg - Alive? This question is NOT equivalent to the ancient quandary of "when does life begin". Life crystallizes, at the earliest, when an egg and a sperm unite (i.e., at the moment of fertilization). Life is not a latent - it is a process triggered by an event. An unfertilized egg is neither a process - nor an event. It does not equal possess the latent to become liveborn unless and until it merges with a sperm. Should such merger not occur - it will never develop life. The latent to become X is not the ontological equivalent of actually being X, nor does it spawn moral and ethical rights and obligations pertaining to X. The transition from potential to being is not trivial, nor is it automatic, or inevitable, or self-sufficing of context. Atoms of various elements have the latent to become an egg (or, for that matter, a human being) - yet no one would claim that they ARE an egg (or a human being), or that they should be dressed as one (i.e., with the unvarying rights and obligations). Moreover, it is the donor nucleus embedded in the egg that endows it with life - the life of the cloned baby. Yet, the nucleus is usually extracted from a muscle or the skin. Should we treat a muscle or a skin cell with the same reverence the critics of cloning wish to accord an unfertilized egg? Is This the Main Concern? The main concern is that cloning - even the healthful kind - will produce piles of embryos. Many of them - intimate to 95% with current biotechnology - will die. Others can be surreptitiously and illegally established in the wombs of "surrogate mothers". It is patently immoral, goes the precautionary argument, to kill so galore embryos. Cloning is such a original technique that its success rate is still unacceptably low. There are secondary ways to harvest stem cells - less costly in terms of hominian life. If we accept that life begins at the moment of fertilization, this argument is valid. But it also implies that - once cloning becomes safer and scientists more skilled - cloning itself should be permitted. This is anathema to those who fear a smooth slope. They abhor the very notion of "unnatural" conception. To them, cloning is a selfish act and an ignorant and mordacious interference in nature's sagacious ways. They would ban fruitful cloning, regardless of how safe it is. Therapeutic cloning - with its mounds of unwanted fetuses - will allow rogue scientists to cross the boundary between tolerable (curative cloning) and illegal (baby cloning). Why Should Baby Cloning be Illegal? Cloning's opponents object to procreative cloning because it can be abused to design babies, inclined natural selection, unbalance nature, produce masters and slaves and so on. The "argument from abuse" has been adorned with every technological advance - from in vitro fertilization to space travel. Every technology can be potentially abused. Television can be either a extraordinary educational tool - or an addictive and mind desensitising pastime. Nuclear fission is a process that yields some nuclear weapons and atomic energy. To claim, as galore do, that cloning touches upon the "heart" of our existence, the "kernel" of our being, the very "essence" of our nature - and thus threatens life itself - would be incorrect. There is no "privileged" form of technological abuse and no hierarchy of potentially offensive technologies. Nuclear fission tackles natural processes as fundamental as life. Nuclear weapons threaten life no less than cloning. The potential for abuse is not a sufficient reason to arrest technological research and progress - though it is a needed condition. Some fear that cloning will further the government's enmeshment in the healthcare system and in scientific research. Power corrupts and it is not inconceivable that governments will ultimately abuse and misuse cloning and other biotechnologies. Nazi Germany had a state-sponsored and state-mandated eugenics program in the 1930's. Yet, this is another variant of the argument from abuse. That a technology can be abused by governments does not imply that it should be avoided or remain undeveloped. This is because complete technologies - without a single exception - can and are abused routinely - by governments and others. This is human nature. Fukuyama raised the possibility of a multi-tiered humanity in which "natural" and "genetically modified" people enjoy different rights and privileges. But why is this inevitable? Surely this can easily by tackled by proper, prophylactic, legislation? All humans, regardless of their pre-natal history, should be dressed equally. Are children currently conceived in vitro treated some differently to children conceived in utero? They are not. There is no reason that cloned or genetically-modified children should belong to distinct legal classes. Unbalancing Nature It is very anthropocentric to argue that the proliferation of genetically enhanced or genetically selected children will somehow unbalance nature and destabilize the precarious equilibrium it maintains. aft all, humans have been modifying, enhancing, and eliminating hundreds of thousands of species for healed over 10,000 years now. Genetic modification and bio-engineering are as natural as agriculture. Human beings are a part of nature and its manifestation. By definition, everything they do is natural. Why would the genetic alteration or enhancement of cardinal more species - homo sapiens - be of some consequence? In what way are humans "more important" to nature, or "more crucial" to its proper functioning? In our short history on this planet, we have genetically modified and increased wheat and rice, dogs and cows, tulips and orchids, oranges and potatoes. Why would intrusive with the heritable legacy of the human species be any different? Effects on Society Cloning - like the Internet, the television, the car, electricity, the telegraph, and the wheel before it - is bound to have great social consequences. It may adoptive "embryo industries". It may lead to the exploitation of women - either willingly ("egg prostitution") or unwillingly ("womb slavery"). Charles Krauthammer, a columnist and psychiatrist, quoted in "The Economist", says: "(Cloning) means the routinisation, the commercialisation, the commodification of the human embryo." Exploiting anyone unwillingly is a crime, whether it involves cloning or light-colored slavery. But why would egg donations and surrogate motherhood be considered problems? If we accept that life begins at the moment of fertilization and that a woman owns her body and everything within it - why should she not be allowed to sell her eggs or to host another's baby and how would these voluntary acts be morally repugnant? In any case, hominian eggs are already being bought and sold and the supply far exceeds the demand. Moreover, full-fledged humans are routinely "routinised, commercialized, and commodified" by governments, corporations, religions, and other ethnic institutions. Consider war, for instance - or commercial advertising. How is the "routinisation, commercialization, and commodification" of embryos more reprehensible that the "routinisation, commercialization, and commodification" of fully formed hominian beings? Curing and Saving Life Cell therapy based on stem cells often leads to tissue rejection and necessitates costly and potentially dangerous immunosuppressive therapy. But when the stem cells are harvested from the patient himself and cloned, these problems are averted. healthful cloning has big untapped - though at this stage still remote - potential to improve the lives of hundreds of millions. As far as "designer babies" go, pre-natal cloning and genetic engineering can be used to prevent disease or cure it, to suppress unwanted traits, and to enhance desired ones. It is the clean-living right of a parent to make sure that his progeny suffers less, enjoys life more, and attains the maximal level of welfare throughout his or her life. That such technologies can be misused by over-zealous, or mentally unhealthy parents in collaboration with avaricious or unprincipled doctors - should not prevent the vast majority of stable, caring, and sane parents from gaining access to them. About The Author