Perfect Copy Unravelling the Cloning Debate

by Agar, Nicholas

• ISBN13: 9781840463804
• ISBN10: 1840463805
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-09-02
• Publisher: Icon Books

Summary

Here Nicholas Agar provides a perfect guide to a labyrinthine debate.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vi
About the author	vii
Acknowledgements	vii
INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE AND ETHICS OF HUMAN CLONING	1	(10)
Perils and possibilities	1	(6)
Hollywood misses the point	7	(4)
1 THE RULES OF ETHICAL ENGAGEMENT	11	(10)
The intrinsic value of human fife	11	(5)
Two ways to be inconsistent about human cloning	16	(1)
Why appeals to God, or to 'our guts', won't work	17	(4)
2 EXPLAINING SOMATIC CELL NUCLEAR TRANSFER (SCNT)	21	(27)
What is a clone?	21	(3)
How would clones be made?	24	(5)
Two barriers in the way of cloning humans	29	(4)
Turning back the biological clock	33	(4)
Cloning or clowning? Two false alarms	37	(2)
Well hello, 6LL3!	39	(3)
Is Dolly for real?	42	(5)
Mice, cows, pigs, goats, cats, rabbits...and a gaur	47	(1)
3 CLONING AFTER DOLLY	48	(34)
Cloning and error	48	(1)
Cloning is inefficient and clones are sickly	49	(6)
Are clones unhealthy because they have shorter telomeres?	55	(3)
Are clones unhealthy because nuclear transfer does not properly reprogram genes?	58	(4)
Are clones unhealthy simply because they are created without sex?	62	(4)
What does the 'too dangerous' objection show?	66	(2)
Using abortion as a means of reducing the risks associated with reproductive cloning	68	(6)
How effective would selective abortion be, anyway?	74	(3)
Is it possible to harm someone by bringing them into existence as a clone?	77	(5)
4 THERAPEUTIC CLONING	82	(27)
Two reasons to clone humans	82	(3)
A new kind of transplant medicine?	85	(6)
Practical problems with therapeutic cloning	91	(3)
Therapeutic cloning and the annihilation of human potential	94	(3)
Natural and artificial potential	97	(4)
Building a human kidney	101	(1)
...or finding one in a pig	102	(2)
The human spare-parts body	104	(5)
5 CLONINGAND IMMORTALITY	109	(26)
Three senses of identity	114	(2)
Would my clone be identically similar to me?	116	(5)
Just how similar would my clone be to me?	121	(4)
Would my clone be metaphysically identical to me?	125	(7)
What remains of the quest for immortality?	132	(2)
Does cloning harm our subjective senses of who we are?	134	(1)
6 JUST ANOTHER REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY?	135	(25)
Making babies	135	(2)
The clone-family?	137	(2)
Biological and social parenthood	139	(5)
Cloning for the clinically infertile	144	(1)
Valuing the genetic link	145	(3)
Cloning might produce 'replacement' children for bereaved couples	148	(1)
Cloning might allow lesbians to reproduce without men	149	(1)
Cloning might provide a child who can also be an organ donor	150	(1)
Making moral judgements about the reproductive choices of others	151	(1)
Replacing a lost child?	152	(1)
Cloning as a means of improving the human species?	153	(4)
Clones as means to other ends?	157	(3)
7 FEAR ITSELF CAN BE FRIGHTENING	160	(13)
Clones in the popular imagination	160	(4)
Liberal optimism about the truth	164	(4)
Not surrendering to irrational prejudice?	168	(2)
The future of human cloning	170	(3)
FURTHER READING	173	(3)
GLOSSARY	176	(5)
INDEX	181