New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | November 17, 2004

Ronald Bailey eggs Costa Rica's proposal for a UN cloning ban.

Comments

James B.|11.17.04 @ 12:53PM|#

Help me out here. This proposed UN ban wouldn't have any legal force in the United States would it?

At least not unless the US Senate ratified it, and if they can't get a Senate majority to ban cloning how can they get ⅔rds of the Senate to approve a treaty.

So isn't this ban all for show and completely meaningless.

On the other hand if it does have legal force, does that mean the UN can ban our guns, fast food, action movies and cigarettes as well. Maybe I'll end up joining the black helicopter crowd.

Highway|11.17.04 @ 1:28PM|#

I still don't see the big deal about cloning. I can understand opposition to current practices, since they have a high rate of defect so far. But I just don't see why the idea of babies that are identical twins to other babies sends so many people into a tizzy. I have no problem with it, therapeutic, reproductive, whatever. Just find out a way to get rid of 'birth' defects when you do it.

James B.|11.17.04 @ 2:11PM|#

Actually a couple of my friens on the right are not opposed to reproductive cloning just therapeutic cloning. They are all for babies being born, they just dont wan the embryos being used to harvest stem cells. But I have yet to see any politician adopt to anti-therapeutic, pro reproductive position.

Another question, under Roe V Wade and Casey versus Planned Parenthood can Congress even outlaw reproductive cloning?

It would seem to me that the Bill of Rights penumbras and emanations that protect abortion would surely protect this form of conception.

|11.17.04 @ 2:58PM|#

I have yet to read a strong argument for why reproductive cloning is wrong in and of itself -- aside from the technical problems.

|11.17.04 @ 3:18PM|#

Rikurzhen,

Because the Pope, etc. say its wrong. :)

|11.17.04 @ 4:46PM|#

What James B. at 12:53 PM asked.

|11.17.04 @ 6:05PM|#

So isn't this ban all for show and completely meaningless.

If the goal is "ban cloning in the United States" then, yes, the UN ban is meaningless. If the goal is "ban cloning in as many places as possible", however, it isn't -- the UN has clout in some nations, just not in this one.