What do you think re: Organ harvesting from human clones?

Hi all,
Here is yet another sicko topic I had a discussion about and would be interested in others views: Eventually science will be able to clone humans and with the increasing medical need of transplant organs will farming humans be ethical? I have read that in China some prisoners put to death have had there organs removed for transplant, even against the families wishes. This is horrific, but if a embryo is created in a lab and the womb sythesized and hypothetically achieve a term human/ lab created product for sale. What would there be to stop a company from marketing this product? I know I know sicko!!

You are moving farther along the slippery slope than you need to be. If genetic, stemcell, and cloning research goes as it currently is, you scenario would be a superfluous waste of time and energy... besides being morally questionable.The actual intent is NOT to grow entire beings from which to ravage organs. Instead the idea is to be able to clone cells (perhaps by first generating an embryo) from an individual and then forcing the cells to grow into an organ/item of choice.Personally I do not see anything unethical about this process. However, I will totally grant that for a person who believes there are such things as "souls" which manifest in any multicellular embryo, there may be some ethical issues.Of course for those people, I start having many questions regarding their beliefs and what impact such organ farming would actually (logically) have on them.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yes Mr. Holmes you have a point that Stem cell research may indeed someday produce the desired organ. BUT..If I know human nature why stop there? Why get an eyeball when you can have a matched set? Hell why not just transplant my aged ass for a new one? Science fiction now yes but I believe these decisions are going to be faced. The USA may never allow such things but how about some unscrupulous rich country overseas? Come to Europe, see the Alps, get a new set of lungs. Ludicrous perhaps but it gives one pause to consider.**disclaimer**I meant no offense to Europeans***

If God made man with a soul,(In theory) will man made man have one?
And if not why not? And if so how did he get it if not from God?

Along similar lines, brief details of a case in Australia. from The World Today Archive - Catholic Church concerned over designer babiesI don't know if the idea is to harvest umbilical stem cells from the embryo or bone marrow transplant from the baby/child at a later time.I see two distinct issues: genetic screening to select an embryo without a genetic disease; selecting an embryo which could be used to help cure a sick individual.Any thoughts?

I too have heard of a case, perhaps the very case you site of a mother who allowed a baby to go to term for bone marrow transplantation in a existing child. I think this is just fine. To use a quote from Spock, the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few.. or the one.
As far as genetic screens for disease go I am all for it. As long as it does not eventually lead to a GATTICA* movie. situation.
post me if you havent seen GATTICA..

I'm not sure what you mean with harvest cloned humans. If you do it to get genetic compatibility, it is not really feasible to wait the long time (years) for the baby to grow.And there is no WAY IN HELL you can justify killing babies for this... Cloned or non-cloned does not matter. You don't kill human beings to get organs.The same laws and social rules forbidding companies to kill people to get their organs now will prevent the same thing in the future.

Of course, everywhere in the world we kill some people so others will get the resources to survive.

Why can't we pay people to donate organs? What's the rationale, there? Lord knows I'd fork over a kidney if the price was right. What do they go for on the black market? $75,000 or so?

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BUT..If I know human nature why stop there?

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Why go there is the real question. Why would anyone go about creating whole trucks when they only need a set of wheels?A set of eyes? A pair of lungs? You can have each grown separately, and most likely one would only need small numbers at a time.About the only reason to grow a whole clone is for general research purposes, or if for some reason your entire body was crippled and you wanted to change it en masse.But by the time we have such things as brain transplants (which is decades away), we'd most likely have the ability to clone a full body without a brain.This leads to the topic of your second reply, which is where the soul comes from. If men make clones are there souls inside? If normally souls come along with bodies, do they still even when there are no brains?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Therapeutic cloning has the intention of understanding the methods by which pluripotent stem cells differentiate into specialized tissues. One goal would be to direct a stem cell to produce a specific tissue to replace one in a patient without fearing an immune response against a foreign tissue. Eventually, umbilical cells may be enough for this (though very few people store umbilical chords or harvest umbilical stem cells currently). It may eventually be possible to generate pluripotent cells without a fertilized embryo. I don't see that there is much of an interest in generating human clones. It is a niche market that even if allowed would be minimal. Sure, Stephen and Syamsu might clone themselves in the hopes of having someone else at EvC that agrees with them, but most people have no interest. In any case, any technology can be used for unethical purposes (just had a flash of the wood chipper scene at the end of Fargo).

YeaH,, Yeah, DOOnt cha know.. Yeah. *Fargo*
Good point Mammanthus, nicely skirted around my question. How would you feel about it though? Do you think cloning a human for parts would be unethical? Is it meat or man? Do we draw the line on complete beings or just parts? What if I want a complete new body? Just insert my Brain in the meat locker and walla! Im ready to go for another 80 plus years? Is this even feasible someday? Your thoughts.

The human body clone with no brain ({DELETED SHOT AT SYAMSU - Adminnemooseus}) is unlikely because of developmental constraints. In any case, if I needed a new heart, kidney or whatever, and I could get it from by growing it from my own cells, I would have no problems with that. I do tissue culture experiments (not from embryos) sometimes. They are alive...I have no problem using them in experiments. Each, as Dolly has shown, has the potential to form an adult individual. The cells that would be needed to generate a specific organ would never make it to the complete being stage. That would be a waste. Why go to all the trouble to make a complete being for organs when you can make each organ multiple times individually? Besides unethical, it would be a waste of resources to grow an individual and then whack them for parts when you can make each part you need independent of the others.[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 03-10-2004]

I think you missed Mammuthus' point: I can envision no economic reason for cloning an entire human body just for spare parts. The time-to-production would be prohibitive, especially considering the ability to clone the parts themselves would likely be available well before the ability to clone the entire system... So your question is probably moot. However, no - it would be unethical to clone an entire body just to harvest bits, assuming that anyone would want to do that.As far as the brain transplant idea - interesting. I think that would be a tad ticklish a question (I can see whole legal careers built around that one). However, I think it safe to assume that a reasonable approach to the question would be to consider just what such an operation would entail: i.e., are you talking about removing an existing brain from an adult clone and replacing it? If so, you'd be committing murder. In addition, even if there was someway of shoe-horning an adult-sized brain into a fetus, the issue is again problematic: once the neocortex has formed and begins functioning, the clone should probably be considered "human" - even if it is not functioning autonomously. In "normal" births, this occurs around the end of the second/beginning of the third trimester. Even a fetus that was created in vitro and developed in an artificial womb of some kind would reach the equivalent stage at roughly the same time (or sooner - if some kind of fast-growth technique was developed). I don't see any way around the problem.

Mammuthus's reply (#13) essentially makes the same points I did in my post (Message 10), but I'll answer the hypothetical question of whether farming organs from a full clone is ethical...As long as the clone did not have a functioning brain (not even a brain stem) then I would have no ethical problems with it. As soon as you have a functioning brain of some age (which would be required for a full clone... time is another reason your scenario is unlikely to occur) ethical questions would certainly arise. In fact I would have no understanding why they would have less rights than a simple "test tube" baby.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)