Abortion yes, Cloning no.

From Jim Gilliam's blog archives

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April 24, 2002 5:04 PM

Charles Krauthammer makes a secular argument against research cloning. His premise is that there's a middle ground between "thingness" and "personhood". This makes abortion okay, but cloning, for research or otherwise, is not. Ramesh Ponnuru responds, agreeing with the conclusion that the only option is to ban all cloning, but on the premise that a human embryo really is a person, and has intrinsic worth.

Krauthammer has identified something important in the cloning debate. It just doesn't make much sense to allow research cloning, but ban reproductive cloning. And he's right.

Desperately trying to make an argument against cloning while still supporting abortion, is amusing to watch, but not of any real significance. If we ban cloning, we must also ban abortion. The only argument against cloning is that a human embryo is a real person. Thus abortion is murder.

Krauthammer never bothers to make an argument against reproductive cloning saying simply that it is "universally abhorred". Truth is, everyone's just scared of it. Nobody has articulated why reproductive cloning should be allowed. It's just too weird for people and it creeps them out. That's it, case closed.

Unfortunately, I'm not really qualified to articulate why reproductive cloning is a good thing. Honestly, my support of all cloning is a visceral one, the same as those that oppose reproductive cloning.

I want to see what happens.

There is so much for humanity to learn by doing this, and I want to be there and learn all of it. The mysteries of life will be revealed only when we can recreate it at will for whatever purpose we want. Cloning is a huge step in that process.

I simply don't understand why we're so scared to manipulate life and bend it to our will. Isn't that what abortion and birth control are? Plus, we're humans! We've been conquering everything possible since the very beginning. That's what all life does.

It's called evolution.

Now we've evolved to the point where we can change the way we evolve. So let's quit running around scared and embrace it.

It's time to make ourselves obsolete.