In the last few years there has been a lot of debate over cloning. Ever since Dolly the Sheep broke headlines by proving that cloning was possible, the public has been in an uproar. Mostly this has been negative - people living in their own nightmares and fantasies where the cloned individuals are identical in every regard to the source. I aim to break this apart and let the light shine through.
I've been following the cloning issue since the beginning, and much closer than you might think. Back in the beginning there was a conference held in Bristol University for the press and general public, where the author of the first book (whose name is not worth mentioning) on Dolly the Sheep and a couple of scientists gave a talk. Mostly these speeches were pretty simplistic mainly due to the general knowledge level of most of the press and public, and also because this woman was trying desperately to sell us autographed copies of her book (I actually went and bought one, and it's gathering dust right now on my shelf).
I remember challenging people at that conference to give me good reasons why cloning people, which was the central issue being debated, was wrong. They had reasons, but all their reasons were bad ones. There was the guy who said that we would end up with a world full of Hitlers. The guy who talked about the human genetic base weakening because everyone would want blue-haired blond-eyes, and so on. And through it all I was thinking - these guys don't have a clue what they're on about. These so-called ethicists who failed biology in high-school have no idea what the connection between genes and people is.
I'll lay it before you, and I won't mince words. A person is more than their genes. This is without even considering the fact that Dolly was not genetically identical to the source sheep.
A person's outward appearance and inner personality are mostly determined by their environment, and to a much smaller extent by their genes. How much food the child eats, how the environment interacts and how he or she interacts with the environment - these are the real issues that determine who we are. There may or may not be genes that influence how we react to the environment, but there certainly aren't genes that determine it.
So even if a person wanted to go and clone Hitler - let them. The Hitler they create would have only the tiniest chance in the universe, considerably less than winning a lottery, of turning out even remotely the same. The two Hitler's wouldn't look anything like each other - our clone might be short and fat, tall and thin, excitable or calm, determined by what childhood he led. His world outlook would have nothing in common with Hitler, and even if we force-fed him the same ideology there would be no guarantee he would accept it.
There are no such things as "evil" genes. There are no people who are evil because of their genes. Evil itself is a stupid subjective term - I prefer anti-social. Only a combination of factors far too difficult to reproduce will create an identical personality copy of a person.
What about blue-haired blond-eyes? Well, personally, if I wanted to clone a kid there's no way they would be Aryan. No Asian couple would choose the stereotypical Western child either. No Africans would go for that Caucasian look. The concept of everyone designing the same child is in itself ridiculous, as humans have a tendency to express themselves as individually as possible. A couple would design a child like no other. Having the freedom to create any child would enhance individuality creating more unique offspring rather than less unique ones.
And yes - cloning would wipe out genetic disease. No more people born handicapped. No more congenital conditions. No more people living bitter lives with the hand fate has thrown them. We all carry genetic mines, programmed to go off now or later. It might be a predisposition for obesity, heart attacks, juvenile onset diabetes. Cloning would end that forever. I know all those people out there who say they are happy to have always been handicapped. That's only because they've never known the alternative.
Even partially cloning someone has vast benefits. Tissue that is not rejected. Safe blood for transfusions. What about the failed attempts with Dolly? Isn't cloning unsafe? Yes, it is unsafe. That is exactly why more research is needed. Institutions should put their backs into this the way they tackled the human genome and create a procedure that works every time. I doubt it would take more than two or three years to do. In fact cloning could quickly become so simple and easy with repeated application and improving technologies that anyone could get access. For those who could not afford it, I'm sure an arrangement could be found. One needn't look at a global capitalist model when searching for one. Of course, genetic screening may become ubiquitous enough to be free, even if genetic manipulation does not, thereby at least blocking most of the nasty conditions from appearing.
What about the cloned child? How do they feel? That depends very heavily on how they are treated. Eventually cloning will be so common that it will no longer be "special" to be a clone. These children will then feel as normal as any other. Who are their parents? The answer is whoever we tell them their parents are. There might be one parent or two, but no child would be cloned without someone to look after them. How about relationships? Is the person they are cloned from their father or brother? The answer is whoever the source chooses to be. He or she might choose to be a parent or a brother or even just a friend. Where your genes come from has always determined relationships in the past, but need not do so in the future.
Who are the candidates for cloning? Mostly people who medically couldn't have children or individuals who would make competent single parents but weren't interested in living with someone else. Genetic screening may take a much larger cut of the rest of the population, although they probably wouldn't want cloning per se. The end result strived for is both a reduction and perhaps elimination of genetic disability combined with the freedom to have the healthy children the parents want.
And what about super-humans? What about them? Is it not infinately better for the human race to be perfectly adapted to its environment than to struggle along hoping the next random sexual union will produce a wonder child? The endless game against nature would be mostly over. Diseases which have dogged us for generations could be wiped out due to our evolving faster than they could ever hope to. Humans could rise above random entropy into an ordered controlled existence where random occurences such as which sperm cell made it through into the egg would have far less of a possibility of inflicting destruction and misery. I say "could", because the chances of this happening even with cloning a common thing are slim. The vast majority of the human race are fickle creatures following a herd instinct and, as can be seen every day, with little actual concern one for the other. I doubt the cooperation necessary to create utopia will ever exist.
If we create the "perfect" human (that's a stupid term, since there is no such thing) what about all the genes no one wanted (probably the ones that did nasty things). We could store them, many times over, in a database for use later - they would not be lost and genetic diversity would be preserved.
What about factory producing children? Long production lines churning out infants? Dream on fear-mongers. Cloning still requires mothers to bear the children to term. There is no such thing as an artificial womb. Furthermore, there are too many people on this planet now to even consider the vast population increases you are fantasizing about. Could Saddam Hussein clone an army? Yes, but it would be easier and cheaper just to hire one. He would need thousands of Iraqi mothers to bear children, who he would then have to house, feed and educate for 20 years before they would be old enough to fight for him. He'd be dead of old age long before and the issue in conflict long forgotten.
Cloning is the freedom to choose. We have that right. The only ones out there who think we don't are the theists, whose ideological basis is that they are slaves anyway to some invisible master. These people believe it is wrong to "create" life. We create life every time we plant a plant or breed livestock. We create life every time we mate, but that union's outcome is random. Humans aren't special. Our planet takes up such a tiny part of the universe and so many things could kill us off. We need every bit of luck and innovation to survive.
For all of us who believe that essentially we are born free, at least in this let it be so. We may be crushed under the heel of a government, "owned" from birth by the State, subject to laws we never agreed to follow and with nowhere to run to escape them. At least let us be free in who our young are. Let us be free to start children off in life without any random dice rolls. To know what is coming is not a terrible thing. It is a blessing everyone desires.