Human Cloning

I will first try to answer the questions my opponent asked. To do so, I will introduce a new reason why cloning could be done.One of the reasons for cloning, which is actually one of the reasons why human cloning is even debatable, is for couples that are struggling with infertility. Although they could adopt, what if they want a child that actually looks like one of the two people? This is the reason for cloning I will use to answer most of your questions, as most of the other reasons are (for now) completely inconceivable with today's ethics and laws.1. Legal problems with cloning"A. Who owns the clone?"Since owning a person is illegal, and clones are humans, I am guessing that you mean, "Who has legal responsibility for the clone?", which is basically the same question as question B: "B. Who is responsible for them before they come to age of majority?" In the case I was talking about, the people who are responsible for the clones would be the parents who asked for the to be made. In another case I previously talked about, in my "'Bringing back the dead'" section, it would again be the person who asked for the clone to be made who would have to take care of it. When I talked about creating "'Perfect Humans'", there could be many different scenarios. If a clone is made to have the perfect physical shape to be a soldier, for example, either they could be raised and taught in the army so they can then become the perfect soldier, either they could be raised like a normal child, adopted or treated like a normal orphan, and the scientists that created him could just keep an eye on him as he evolves throughout his life."C. At what age does life begin? (Be prepared for strong backlash from "Pro Choice" activists)"This is an important question, but that can rather easily be answered. Like normal children, after about nine months, the new clone should be able to act like a normal newborn, so that is when his life would truly commence."D. Are these people citizens or property or pets?"Out of the three options my opponent gave me, I think the idea of the clone being a citizen is the only one that could work. A clone has the exact same genes as normal people, which characterises it as a human. If slavery has been abolished, clones could not be treated like pets or property, as they are human. "E. Is the death of a clone in a lab an act of murder, manslaughter or negligent homicide?"This of course depends. Once an age for question C is chosen, I think anything that happens after that age should be resolved in the same manner it would on a normal human being."F. What legal protection do researchers have from the "parents""?I do not really know where this is going. If the question had been, "What legal protection do the 'parents' have from the researcher?", then I might have understood, but in this way I do not. Could my opponent make that clear and I will try to answer in the next round."G. Are there legal protections for my cell line?"This is a very interesting question. This is something that would have to be talked about if human cloning is legalized, but right now, all I can say is that if a human is alive, he has the right to give his cell line or keep it from researchers so they can clone that person or not. When the person is dead, this is a matter that would have to discussed more in detail.2. Scientific problems with human cloning"A. Cloning of higher mammals has a high failure rate."Although this is true, the only way to ever make human cloning more successful is to legalize it so researchers can work on it and improve it."B. Attempts to clone complete human will result many deaths."True. But this brings us back to question 1.C. If a death occurs before this age, than you can not really call it a death. Babies all around the world die while in their mother's stomach, so this can not really be counted as a death. Also, if a clone dies later on in life, it would be the death of life that we created. Nature would not have changed at all."C. Do we need to regulate who we allow to donate tissues?"This is a good question. People that are more likely to pass on a disease through their genes, if it is to have a child, should be allowed to, like today. On the other hand, if it were for the other cases where we would want to create 'super humans', then it is less likely someone with this kind of problem would be chosen to donate tissues."D. Human experimentation currently requires informed consent.- Who can give this?"You are probably talking about the experimenting done on a human clone. In that case, if the clone is older than 18, than he should be the one to give consent. But we are not talking about experimenting on clones, we are just debating on whether or not we should clone."E. Our goal should be to improve life. At what cost to the people who are failed experiments?"That is just the way science goes. If there were never any failed experiments, there would be no problems to solve and great discoveries to be made."F. Cloned creatures have short life spans and many health and genetic problems."Same answer as question 2.A.3. Morality problems in human cloning.The whole debate is pretty much about these, so if my opponent wants to talk about them in detail, we can, but I think the debate talks about these already.4. Social problems with human cloningI really did not understand how any of the questions in this section had anything to do with the subject, but if my opponent would like to explain, I would be glad to answer them.I will now proceed to countering my opponents counter-arguments:"Great advances in science are usually worked out in socially acceptable ways. It was socially acceptable to detonate nuclear bombs in the desert but not in cities"Does this mean we should create and keep clones in the desert?"This is not correct."In fact, it is. If researchers can't clone humans, there is no way that they will ever perfect human cloning, and therefore the problems you were talking about will never be resolved."Current science does not do so well. Dolly was the one that lived out of 277 failed attempts."From that sentence, I'd like everyone to remember the words, 'Dolly was the one that lived.' If there was a successful attempt, than scientists will be able to have more successes. Allowing human cloning would them let them perfect the process to reduce this number of 277 to 1."Clones tend to have short life spans and many problems."Once again, the problems can't be solved if you are not allowed to look at them.Once again, thanks to my opponent for providing such rich arguments.