Cloning as Ultimate Evil

Some say cloning could someday provide medical miracles: however, Human Events editor, Terence Jeffrey says that cloning violates all 10 commandments. You decide.

[Thanks to Jeff Patterson at Gravity Lens]

Comments

[Yahweh]

... as well as the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not get caught.

[J. Alexander Lowman]

My word. Just looking at the rest of that website, I can see that those people have some serious issues, and cloning isn't the biggest one of them. One of the advertisments talks about the "dangers of weight lifting"! What gives that guy the knowledge to make any serious commentary on cloning anyway? And I love the wording he uses to make cloning sound so horrible. What about all the sick people (actual people) that could benefit from such things? I bet they could describe how horrible it would be to deny them treatment that might be possible if such research is allowed to continue.

[thoreau]

In the Onion, somebody interviewed on the street said of cloning:

"This has limitless scientific possibilities, which means one thing: We must keep Christians from finding out about it."

Somebody else said:

"Finally, a way to make more Asians."

[GoonFood]

I'm waiting for the cloning spam. That's when you know we're getting close.

"Hi, 15#*($ Never wOrK agaIN! FREE BOOK ON hOW TO MAKE CLONES ..."

[Louis]

Let's just have a two-track system where people like Terence Jeffrey can opt out of any drug or therapy that was developed with help from cloning.

[chthus]

Louis,

I second that. I've long thought there should be something similar for those of the anti-animal testing crowd, letting them opt out of anything that had been developed through such testing.

[dagny]

I like their ones for coveting, which basically says that cloning should be banned because people want it.

Now THERE'S a sound basis for public policy.

[Ian A]

And the pile of evidence grows: the bible can be twisted to support any viewpoint! Thanks, Terrence P. Jeffrey!

[Rick Barton]

Yes, a "two track system" known as the; "free market", where folks like Terence Jeffrey are not forced to subsidize cloning or patronize it, but the government does not ban or regulate it. This is very important since it might well save human beings, the kind of human life that all most all of us value!

[Brian]

I'll give Mr. Jeffery credit for including this in the closing paragraph:

I'm neither a scientist nor a theologian...

Well, that pretty much explains the rest of the column, doesn't it?

I'll admit it's been a long time since I showed up for Sunday school myself, but in light of his interpretation of commandments 1, 4, and 6, I have to wonder what he thinks about in vitro fertilization and adoption?

Also, I don't think that soliciting female voluteers (and in all likelihood, paying them) for their eggs constitutes "coveting thy neighbor's wife"...especially if they aren't married.

[Rick Barton]

Terence Jeffrey wrote:

all cloning steals a child's right to a natural father

What?? It's impossible for the cloned entity to have a father, so how could this "child" have a right to a father?

But, if the government doesn't get in the way and ruin everything by making it illegal, therapeutic cloning has the potential to save the lives of fathers of untold numbers of children!
http://www.techcentralstation.com/021204F.html

This one is really serious. We all should contact our congress person and senators and implore them in the name of decency to just get the Hell out of the way!
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

[Evilcor]

1)THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME:
Strange is the god who permits us knowledge without an upside. Cloning must be of the Devil.

2)THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN:
Throwing God's name into every debate is blasphemy.

3)REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY AND KEEP IT HOLY:
Does he ever shut up?

4)HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER:
Better to watch Mom and Dad waste away from an otherwise treatable illness.

5)THOU SHALT NOT KILL:
See point 4, above.

6)THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY:
Without reproductive cloning, infertile couples will literally turn to surrogates.

7)THOU SHALT NOT STEAL:
Jeffrey would deprive me of years 89-146.

8)THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS:
He'll lie to do it.

9)THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE:
MY neighbor's wife? Are you kidding?!?

10)OR ANYTHING ELSE etc. . .
This is tantamount to demonizing the very processes of life itself. Replace 'covet' with 'desire' or 'yearn for' and you get a sense of the kind of life-hating ethos of Christianity(generally; your sect is, of course, different).

Speaking of opting out of the relevant treatments, can we force Jeffrey and his ilk to live (and die) without such remedies? They do seem eager to meet God. . .

[Jason Ligon]

How moronic. You could make similarly strong (ahem) connections to any set of rules you like.

Embryos used to create clones didn't have the freedom to assemble because they were trapped in test tubes! That's a violation of the 4th, too, and don't tell me the devils in white coats read them Miranda ...

[speedwell]

"Let's just have a two-track system where people like Terence Jeffrey can opt out of any drug or therapy that was developed with help from cloning."

How very interesting. Then why is it so horrible to allow organic food consumers to opt out of eating food created with genetic manipulation techniques?

Just asking.

[Overlord]

So what else is new? Every medical advance in history has been opposed for religious reasons.
Read, "History of the Warfare between Science and Religion" by Andrew White.

[Jason Ligon]

speedwell:

Nothing is wrong with it. All they need to do is buy food that they know wasn't genetically manipulated. Call it organic or whatever they want. They don't have the right to force everyone to fund a labelling system for their hangups, though.

[M. Simon]

The fact that Asians are already on the case means that in 2004 or more likely in 2008 the Democrats will reverse much of this in the name of compassion.

And those who can afford it will go where treatment is available until then putting preassure on our system.

[Jean Bart]

M. Simon,

The Norwegians and Swedes are also countries on the edge of this research; Israelis too.

[Jean Bart]

M. Simon,

And unfortunately France has outlawed this research; but that ban is a few years old, and there is increasing pressure to get rid of it (due to efficacy of the research, etc.), so we may be ahead of the cycle you see in the U.S. I know the Pasteur Institute has been violating the law too, so how effective a ban in the U.S. would be is also a question to ask.

[Shirley Knott]

Attention M. Simon:
with respect to "It's impossible for the cloned entity to have a father, so how could this "child" have a right to a father? ", one wonders what you understand cloning to be that differs meaningfully from natural twinning?
Every identical twin is a clone of its sibling. Are you seriously suggesting that natural twins (or perhaps one of the two, the one born later?) does not have a father?
Shirley Knott

[Rick Barton]

speedwell,

There are lots of places to buy organic foods. BTW, there is article in the Feb 7-13 newscientist http://www.newscientist.com/ (sorry, no link to this article) about aspirin that says that organic foods are good for you, not for what they don't contain but for something they contain more of than non-organic foods; salicylates, of which aspirin is a class of. Check it out, very interesting.

Also, article says aspirin should be considered to be a vitamin. I'm hoping for GM foods that are modified to contain lots of salicylates.

[Shawn Smith]

"The Ten Commandments"?

Exodus 34:14-26 (KJV) lists them as follows:

• Thou shalt worship no other god.
• Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
• The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep.
• Sacrifice every firstling cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male, but the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb.
• Six days thou shalt work, but on the senventh day thou shalt rest.
• Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at year's end.
• Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the LORD God
• Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of passover be left unto the morning.
• The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God.
• Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

So how does cloning (of any variety) disobey these ten commandments, the only ones named as such in the KJV?

[Rick Barton]

Shirley Knott,

I was the one who wrote: "It's impossible for the cloned entity to have a father, so how could this "child" have a right to a father?"

I was speaking specifically of the cloned entity that is the result of therapeutic cloning.