No Past and No Sense of Direccion

What makes us human? Besides the obvious things that literally define us as humans like the ability to speak and our unique body composition among other things, what really makes us humans is the ability to retain our memories and the life experiences we encounter and learn from them. Our experiences and life encounters are the things that mold us into what we end up becoming as adults.

So what if we didn’t have those experiences and those memories to define us how would feel and what would be our view of life? We most likely wouldn’t know how we should live our lives and wouldn’t know where exactly we should fit. At least, when a person suffers from memory loss they still have natural instincts and habits that remained from their lived lives.

So what if a human didn’t have memories, live experiences or even instinct that remained from habits that were practiced for a life time? This would be the case for a clone that never had the chance to live a life into adulthood. In other words, a clone that was cloned to be an adult and never went through the process of being a child or even a teenager.

Yes I know, it sounds like a cheesy sci-fi movie but if it becomes possible to clone a human being so that it is “born” as baby and can mature wouldn’t it eventually be possible to clone an adult so the clone is “born” as an adult? It could probably happen.

Soooo if this ever became possible it would be worse than being a clone that had the chance to mature like any other human conceived through traditional means.

Imagine yourself as a person who just randomly appeared in this world with no past and no idea who you are. You have a blank mind and most likely only have the basic functions programmed into you like the ability to use the restroom and the ability to speak. You open your mouth to speak but your voice is unfamiliar to you. You are told that you are a creation and you don’t know what that even means. You are disoriented and don’t even know what you are supposed to do. You don’t even know how to react to the information you are being given about your origin. As a natural instinct that every human has you might start to feel anxious and feel scared but you don’t even know what those feelings mean or how they are affecting you.

Even of the thought of going through all of that make me anxious. To not even know how fear feels is frightening. I would never wish that upon anyone.

If anyone in the future ever comes to you and asks you if you want to be part of a cloning experiment, I would suggest that you think about it twice even if it sounds appealing and cool. You could possibly be helping create a clone of yourself that has no past or memories. Scary, I know. 

Clones, Genetically Engineered Humans and Society

In my previous blog posts I have been focusing more on the research and theoretical part of genetic engineering and cloning. What I haven’t really focused on is how a genetically engineered person or clone would fit into our society. Think about it, our society even if we like to think otherwise, is not very welcoming to those who are different. I know some people are welcoming, but as a mass if they feel like they are being threatened or that something exists that goes against everything they believe in they will turn against it.

Up till now just the mention of genetically engineered people or clones scares people or at least makes them uneasy. Cloning and genetically engineering people has never been accomplished before which is exactly the reason why people don’t trust it. We as human tend to cling on to what we know, so when something comes around that doesn’t make sense to us we don’t want to be open minded.

You may ask, if clones and genetically engineered humans are in fact humans why should we not trust them or welcome them into our society? As a matter of fact I ask myself the same question. To put this case in to perspective I want to compare it to artificial insemination. When I refer to artificial insemination in this case I refer to a women getting inseminated by the sperm of a person she does not know and is a currently a single mother. A few years ago, when artificial insemination started to come about, plenty of people were against it and people are still against it. Some may say it is not natural to do such things. The process in itself is viewed as unnatural but what about the person that is born through these means? How do they fit into our society? You would never be able to tell if a person was created through natural reproduction (in other words from intercourse between a man and a women) or through artificial insemination. But, as soon as it is known that a person was created through artificial insemination people will automatically have a different view of that person. I have seen cases where the child suffers greatly because they don’t know where exactly they come from. Yes, they know who their mother is but what about their father. The mother would not even be able to give the name of the father to the child. So now imagine if a person was not even born from a mother.

Genetically engineered people or clones would have neither a biological father nor mother. So if they are introduced into our society they would not feel like they belong. Our society in majority is based on families and the notion of us having roots and ancestors, clones and genetically engineered people would have neither. If society didn’t shun them and learned to accept clones and genetically engineered people would they feel comfortable themselves being around people who have lineage and history? Either way, clones and genetically engineered humans would have a hard time assimilating to our norms and customs when they have no history which is what makes us humans and what makes up our society. 

Animal Cloning: The benefits and downfalls

So far I have been focusing on human genetic engineering and cloning. Well today instead of focusing on humans I am going to focus on animals. There have been plenty of advances when it comes to the cloning and genetic alteration of animals. I was doing a little research on the subject and ran across a few interesting articles.

Before I go into what I came across in my research I want to focus on the question: what would we gain out of cloning animals? A few pros would be:

-          We could produce more livestock for consumption

-          We could help endangered species, so basically animal conservation

-          We could make new breakthroughs with animal cloning which can help with human cloning and  medical breakthroughs

Although, the list above doesn’t sound all that bad there are still a few negative outcomes when it comes to cloning itself and cloning for livestock consumption.

I was reading an article written by DN Wells were he mention a few negative outcomes of first generation clones. For example, first generation clones usually don’t make it either due to miscarriages or to other complications after they are born. Now the question arises, if we would be okay with consuming animals that have such complications? Would consuming these animals have any negative effects on the consumer? I for one am not completely convinced about consuming a clone. But then again that’s me. Others might be okay with it. For those who are not completely convinced about consuming animal clones it might be reassuring that the offspring produced from two clones come out normal and with no complications unlike the first generation clones. I think I would be more open to consuming a second generation clone than a first generation one (Sorry to those of you who are vegetarians and vegans). Now is it morally correct to clone animals for our own benefit? I haven’t really taken a side on that yet. I guess it would help if we looked at it from a person’s perspective. I don’t think many people would be okay with cloning people to reap some benefit out of it.

I did say I was going to focus on animals for this post but I am going to deviate a little and toss medical advancements into the mix. By continuing with animal genetic engineering and cloning there can be some great medical advancements that can be very beneficial. But, the issue of it being correct or not rises again. And the debate continues! It is going to be hard to decide what side to take when the knowledge is out there that a lot of good can come out of something that is viewed as morally wrong.

Just as a last remark, I do have to say that I don’t see anything wrong with using cloning and genetic engineering to preserve animals that are close to extinction. Just putting out there. I actually think it is pretty cool although by doing that it could alter the eco life those animals belong to. Who knows, that is something else to look into…

I hope you found this post somewhat interesting. Feel free to comment and share your thoughts!

If you would like to look into the topic of animal cloning and genetics a bit more in depth refer to the citations below for a couple of articles I read that inspired this blog post.

Wells, DN (2005), "Animal cloning: problems and prospects", Revue scientifique et technique (International Office of Epizootics) (0253-1933), 24 (1), p. 251.

Y. Tsunoda, Y. Kato, “Recent progress and problems in animal cloning”, Differentiation, Volume 69, Issues 4–5, January 2002, Pages 158-161

Hello, World

Genetic Engineering: Where do we stand with it now? And where will we stand with it in the future?

Genetic Engineering has always been controversial. Some of us view it as an advance in science and others view it as something unnatural.

The question is who is right? I would like to think that both sides have a point. In some ways genetic engineering is unnatural but at the same time we can learn so much and do so much with it.

Now let us think about the future. I want to in the end be able to answer the question, well at least come close to answering the question of whether we are going to rely heavily on genetic engineering in the future or not. And if we are, are we going to welcome everything that comes with it, such as cloning.

Cloning has always been such a controversial topic. If whether it is correct or moral to do such experiments. Should we accept it just because cloning could potentially help us in the future, or should we not continue with such experiments because some consider it morally wrong? What do you think?

Before we can consider what might happen in the future with genetic engineering we need to first look at what is happening now. How is genetic engineering helping us now? How much advancement has there been to benefit us?

Let us consider how genetic engineering make different people feel. I have grown up learning about the sciences so I have an open mind to them. But then there are those who find it morally wrong especially when it comes to cloning. How is genetic engineering impacting our society and our views? How is genetic engineering impacting our moral standings and religious beliefs?

Is it morally correct to clone something or someone in order to benefit someone who is sick or dying? Wouldn't that be denying the clone its life? Now that is a moral dilemma. Cases like these are what make it difficult to take one side completely on genetic engineering.

So I look forward to diving into people’s opinions on the matter and seeing why people agree or disagree with genetic engineering. How are people’s opinions on the matter going to determine whether or not genetic engineering and its advancements will play a vital role in our future?

I mentioned to someone today about my idea of writing and blogging about genetic engineering. That person’s reaction was quite interesting. That person told me that the family he came from really viewed genetic engineering as something unnatural and sinful. That genetic engineering went against their religious beliefs thus, it should not be done. Then I asked why they thought it was unnatural and sinful and the response was that we had no right to create life in a lab. Although, genetic engineering is not all about cloning and creating “life” there is such a huge focus on that particular aspect of genetic engineering that many people don’t see the other advancement made by it. We usually tend to focus on what we consider bad rather than analyzing all the aspects of the issue which tends to make us bias and close minded.

Thus, I want to break through that barrier and really establish a side where both the “bad” and the “good” are viewed in perspective and see how by doing that how likely genetic engineering will play a vital role in our future. 

An Annotation On : "Reproductive cloning, genetic engineering and the autonomy of the child: the moral agent and the open future"

Hey guys! So I ran into a really interesting article about the ethical views on genetically engineered humans. Read the annotation below and look up the article if you are interested! Enjoy!

Mameli, M. Reproductive cloning, genetic engineering and the autonomy of the child: the moral agent and the open future. Journal of Medical Ethics, 2007.

In this article, Mameli takes two authors who are one sided on the issue of morality of reproducing through genetic engineering and bio technologies in order to disprove them on the matter that genetically engineered people would be different from people who are traditionally conceived. The arguments from both authors cited are that people conceived through cloning and genetic engineering means would be unable to assume responsibility for their actions because the responsibility would fall on the parents who engineered their children that way.

The author cleverly uses the theory of nature vs nurture to make the point that genetically engineered people would be driven to adapt to their surroundings rather than follow their genetic instincts.  Mameli’s arguments are straight to the point and are easy to follow so that the points made and perspective presented come through clearly. Mameli’s arguments are also very relatable to other studies concerning people’s basic instincts.

This article is very relatable to any paper trying to bring into perspective the moral standings of those for and against cloned and genetically engineered humans.