On Mon, 2 Jul 2001, Trei, Peter wrote:

Cloning is far from a perfected technology - dozens of embryos are started for each one that comes to term, and many that are born have severe defects and die young. A lot that don't die young are pretty darn unhealthy in various ways.

That I didn't know. I've been under the impression that most failed cloning attempts result in a miscarriage. But, it really doesn't affect my point -- if we think that starting a pregnancy known to end in unhealthy babies gives the government a reason to intervene and incarcerate, then we also have to apply the same standard to those who smoke/use dope/live unhealthily during normal pregnancy. That is what I meant by the "unborn babies", the view that we should think of foetuses as first hand citizens with constitutional protection that is being violated when they're "made unhealthy".

A lot of the rhetoric seems to be on the level of 'this is just soooo creepy'.

Yep. That's even worse.

When cloning has a high success rate, and embryos which are going to have problems after birth can be identified and culled at an early stage, then I have no problem with human cloning. Until then, I'd rather people did not try it (though, unlike the State, I would not stop them).

That I can relate to. The point was less about whether cloning is ethical than about the right of the government to stop it. Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:decoy@iki.fi, gsm: +358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front