Cloning Humans

Back in the early eighties I was asked a question that has been asked by religious people for centuries. "If a man created a man would he have a soul, and would it be a sin to kill him?"
The question has always been theoretical in the past but with cloning research advancing the way it is today this question was the hot thought of the decade of the nineties and has now developed into a congressional debate. there is even discussion of making laws concerning human cloning.
There are obviously opposite views on human cloning. One school, the religious right, give the issue an absolute "no" because man was never intended to be God. To these people I argue that God created man and that God, being omnipotent, always knew that Man would come to the point where he had the technology to actually make something like this happen.
If Cloning is not God's will then why did he allow man to have a brain that could think and develop this kind of technology?
The other side of the coin says yes, we should clone humans. There are a myriad number of reasons to do this. 1. The creation of a working class that is conditioned from birth to do all the dirty jobs that real humans hate to do. 2. Creating a class of soldiers so that real humans do not have to die in a war. 3. The use of cloned organs to save the lives of real people who need transplants. 4. To cure infertility in people who can not have real children. There are other reasons as well but lets just examine the ethical questions posed by just these
First of all look at the wording of the issues. There is a distinction between real and cloned. Would cloned individuals have a lesser than status? It is kind of like the child who is adopted. Some parents do not want their children to know that they are adopted because they might get teased by the other children who can be very cruel. What about cloned children. I can just see other children saying, 'I have a mommy and daddy, you don't.'�
Would a cloned child be loved as much as a real child, or would he/she be a throw away child? Once they grew up and turned rebellious, as all children do at some point, would we just destroy them because they were not real to begin with? Would we have the capacity to love a child who was cloned unconditionally or would we be creating a race of throw away children?
I think we have enough problems with latchkey children and neglect as it is. Would creating a cloned child be a reason to easily say that I don't like that child I think I will just neglect that one and try again?
A friend of mine used to tell me easy come easy, go when it came to money and other things that are gained too easily. If there is no effort or personal investment would it be easier to see the life of a cloned child as a miracle to be treasured? Would parents of cloned children love those children as if it was their own?
I think there would be those, like with real children, who would care deeply for their cloned child and would do anything for them to give them the best life possible.
I also think there would be parents who would look at their troubled child as a failed experiment and want to discard them and try again. What would we do with the discarded children? What are the social costs of cloning children who were cloned as experiments by rich people who, when they get tired of something, just throw it away. Would they treat cloned children as real children of as wasted money?
I see the former as the biggest problem. I also see it as the most likely reality. Due to the medical expenses of cloning only rich people would be able to clone a child. I am sure insurance companies would never pay for it. They would be shooting themselves in the foot. They would be paying for a child to be created that they would just have to insure. If any of you have children you know that most of the time you spend a lot more on a child if they have a serious illness or congenital problem than you pay in medical insurance protection. I know I was an expensive child. My parents got their money's worth from insuring me.


Cheap Labor

What do we do with clones that are created for a specific purpose? Do we treat them as human beings? Do we create them with IQ's just high enough to perform the basest of jobs, a race of slaves?
Do we treat them like real people or do we simply warehouse them and educate and condition them to be grateful for the work they do? Do we even have to pay them or do we they pay for themselves with the work that they do? If they become unhappy with what they do and stop working efficiently do we just get rid of them and replace them with another clone?
Again there would be two schools. I can see conservatives saying that they are just created cheap labor and once having outlived their usefulness we no longer need to pay for their existence.
Does our social responsibility end at just giving them a bare bones existence for which they are happy because they will have been raised in an environment where they would never know anything different than slavery? What are the psychological repercussions? Do we know enough about the human psyche to make something like this work?
I already see a generation of kids addicted to video games. Do we create a race of slaved who are addicted to video games and use the playing of games as a reward for doing their dirty jobs?
I can see the above as a reality. We already treat illegal aliens as sub human, give them servant jobs, pay them low wages, discriminate against them, and afford them substandard housing. If it is so easy to treat real human beings this way how much easier would it be to treat a race of clones that were engineered for a purpose this way?


Nature's Course

Consider people who want to have physically perfect children through genetic manipulation. What do we do with the failures because we do not know enough about the genes in a human body to remove all these defects? What do we do with the defective products?
What about the value of having children who are not perfect. My sister was born blind and autistic. She can be a challenge at times but the joy she brings with her seemingly little accomplishments and improvement bring us so much joy. To be loved unconditionally be her is the greatest feeling in the world to me.
How do we hinder our spiritual development when we do away with birth defects? I once had a conversation with a man who called himself a rational person. He said that he had a daughter with diabetes. He said that in his perfect world he would have had his daughter destroyed at birth because in his society there would be no defective children. If it would be that easy for him to destroy his own flesh and blood how much easier would it be for people like that to destroy clones that had defects?

I have discussed these issues because they will eventually be real situations that humanity will have to face. I think we should give real consideration to these issues. There is already enough bad treatment of humanity and discrimination of humans who were born.
How much more discrimination would there be against people who are cloned? Are we really evolved enough as civilized human being to tackle such issues? If we can not be responsible to real people can we really think that we will be responsible to a race of clones?

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