Susan, co-owner of NextStage, a bear to negotiate with infinitely more knowledgeable than I on matters bioclonical, wrote a response to Stemagen First to Create Cloned Human Embryos from Adult Cells in Mature Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells, Part 1. I mentioned at the end of that post that I would respond from a more psychosocial perspective and here it is.
First and foremost, the general public will stop internalizing what they're reading when certain words with specific psycho-emotive weight are recognized. In this case, "clone", "cloning", ... Strangely, these words are also the ones that make good SEO fodder.
What do I think? I think everything changes and this is simply one of the changes. Right now there are rules and laws and mores against certain aspects of cloning technology. When enough people find sufficient economic need to change those laws, they will.
That will be the time when my personal mores, laws and rules will most likely be violated. Humans are not the most beneficient creatures on the planet. Cloning for the purpose of organ harvesting has already occurred...in a way. “Saviour Siblings” vs “"Whoops I did it again" Kids: Any Ethical Difference? has the following...
"A test-tube baby has been selected by doctors using controversial genetic screening to save the life of its older sister."Already questions are being raised about whether the baby boy was really wanted or merely 'created as a medical commodity' to save his sister.
"Doctors genetically tested the embryos of an American couple before implanting one of them in the mother's womb.
"They chose the embryo that would have the exact type of cells needed to save the couple's six-year-old daughter, who is suffering from a life-threatening bone marrow deficiency."
Stem cells were taken from the resulting boy to be given to his sister to restore her damaged bone marrow.
A similar case in California in the early 1990s involved a daughter born, after genetic selection to be a bone marrow donor for her leukemic sister. Such children born to donate to their siblings are called “saviour siblings”. There, obviously, is controversy whether it is ethical to analyze a number of parental zygotes, find the appropriate one and then implant it in the uterus, anticipating the birth of a child who can donate cells to their sick sibling. Some wonder if this amounts to bringing only a "commodity" into the world. There is nothing in these stories about ‘saviour siblings” suggesting the new child is ignored or unloved.
Cloning will occur as more and more people decide their lives are more important than the lives of others. Whether for organ donation or for an inexpensive (read "slave labor") work force, cloning will occur.
And as always, technology will greatly precede humankind's ability to cope with the fruits of its technology. Will people in need of an organ be able to look into their own faces and know they are sacrificing themselves to create the harvest? Will they be able to look in the mirror and see their face being sold as chattel on some remote mining world or in their own (literal) backyard?
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» Genetics, Genetic Non-Descrimination Act, and Responding to Tex's Comment from BizMediaScience
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