Reactions to Silver p.12-20

Summary

VI. The Brave New World Scenario:

Silver considers the possibility that some governments (like North Korea) might try to make an army of clone soldiers or factory workers. Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel titled Brave New World included this type of scenario, and even today many people seem to fear it, but Silver argues against with the following points:

1. The government would need to force large numbers of women to bear and raise these clones, and this is unlikely to happen in a normal country.


2. A crazy dictator or religious maniac might do it. However, would there be any benefit? The clones would be the same in terms of DNA (the same life in a general biological sense), but would not necessarily be good soldiers or factory workers or great minds or leaders because they will grow up differently. The environment is what makes a soldier or genius, not the DNA. After taking 20 years to raise clones, crazy dictators or religious leaders such as Asahara will realize that clones are not the same as themselves and have no advantages and will "lose interest."

Thus, Silver argues that the Brave New World scenario of a clone army is highly unlikely to happen and is not a rational reason to ban cloning as a reproductive method for normal persons who want to use the technology for acceptable motives.

Reaction/Discussion Questions:

1. Is Silver's refutation of the Brave New World scenario successful? Does it help us feel safe to proceed with allowing human cloning research and legalizing human cloning? Silver fully accepts the possibility that egomaniac leaders like Asahara will attempt to abuse cloning technology and says "Well, that is unstoppable, so it is not a reason to ban cloning." I feel that he is taking this possibility too lightly and there is still room for concern. What do you think? Personally, I think the risk for abuse in this way is high, especially if genetic engineering is involved for developing superhuman genes. Humans may be engineered and cloned for specific purposes and that seems unacceptable to me.
   
2. This is related to the above, but on p.14, Silver writes: "one is hard-pressed to come up with a single strategic advantage that any government might get from breeding clones..." Silver seems extremely naive with this statement. With genetic engineering, there is obviously an advantage to clone certain types of engineered humans who have been found to be effective for some purpose. It is an abuse of both the cloned person and the mother that will bear this designed child, and it seems likely to happen if human cloning technology becomes widely available. Do you feel that Silver's argument in that part is persuasive?

VII. The Cloning of Children:
Silver presents two main scenarios in which cloning a child might be a positive choice: 1) organ donations for siblings, and 2) sterile couples having genetically connected children.

First, using the real story of Anissa and Marissa for comparison, Silver argues that having a clone child to save the life of an other child as a 100% compatible donor is ethical and better than Marissa's case, which was lucky with a 25% chance. Some experts feel that creating a clone child as a tool for the purpose to save another child is unethical, but Silver argues that as long as the parents love the child, it is probably better than the large numbers of unplanned natural children born throughout the world.

Reaction/Discussion

1. Is the Anissa/Marissa scenario of having a cloned sibling to cure a disease a morally acceptable case for having a cloned child? If you were a parent, what would you do? What would I do? I think I would...do it. I would still love the second child in the same way, so I would not hesitate to clone my first child (assuming the illness gene will not also be cloned--)
2. Now that iPS cells have been discovered, is the Marissa cloning purpose no longer relevant?

Second, Silver presents two examples of cloning children for sterile parents. In one example, a pair of twins die in a car accident. The mother is sterile (no eggs) and cannot have natural children, so cloning from the cells of the twins is the only way to have children with the DNA of both parents. Silver states strongly "It is hard to imagine what could possibly be wrong with this use of human cloning technology." He suggests it is unethical to withhold the technology; in other words, parents should have this choice if the technology is safe. Also, Silver mentions that a child's consent to be cloned is not needed, and children will not feel "so" bad about having the same DNA as someone else. If some cloned children are not treated with respect or are abused, the problem is the people who do the discrimination and abuse, not the cloning technology. Drawing a line with laws related to reproduction is not necessary, and people should be allowed to make their own choices.

1. Discussion: On p.20, Silver mentions the idea that the respect and dignity of the clone might be abused because the clone has been created for a purpose such as saving a dying child or replacing a dead child, but refutes it saying 1) it is not very likely, 2) it is the abuse that is the problem, not the cloning, and 3) if having twins is OK, cloning should be OK. It is basically the same thing. Do all of those arguments make sense? I think that they are basically good, but somehow I think there is a difference between natural twins and cloned latter day twins. What do you think? Will a cloned person feel trauma from the fact that he has been copied from another child? Also, is this enough of a reason to ban cloning?