Perfect Copy: Unravelling the Cloning Debate

CONTENTS......Page 4
List of illustrations......Page 7
Acknowledgements......Page 8
Perils and possibilities......Page 10
Hollywood misses the point......Page 16
The intrinsic value of human life......Page 20
Two ways to be inconsistent about human cloning......Page 25
Why appeals to God, or to ‘our guts’, won’t work......Page 26
What is a clone?......Page 30
How would clones be made?......Page 33
Two barriers in the way of cloning humans......Page 38
Turning back the biological clock......Page 42
Cloning or clowning? Two false alarms......Page 46
Well hello, 6LL3!......Page 48
Is Dolly for real?......Page 51
Mice, cows, pigs, goats, cats, rabbits … and a gaur......Page 56
Cloning and error......Page 57
Cloning is inefficient and clones are sickly......Page 58
Are clones unhealthy because they have shorter telomeres?......Page 64
Are clones unhealthy because nuclear transfer does not properly reprogram genes?......Page 67
Are clones unhealthy simply because they are created without sex?......Page 71
What does the ‘too dangerous’ objection show?......Page 75
Using abortion as a means of reducing the risks associated with reproductive cloning......Page 77
How effective would selective abortion be, anyway?......Page 83
Is it possible to harm someone by bringing them into existence as a clone?......Page 86
Two reasons to clone humans......Page 91
A new kind of transplant medicine?......Page 94
Practical problems with therapeutic cloning......Page 100
Therapeutic cloning and the annihilation of human potential......Page 103
Natural and artificial potential......Page 106
Building a human kidney......Page 110
… or finding one in a pig......Page 111
The human spare-parts body......Page 113
5 CLONING AND IMMORTALITY......Page 118
Three senses of identity......Page 123
Would my clone be identically similar to me?......Page 125
Just how similar would my clone be to me?......Page 130
Would my clone be metaphysically identical to me?......Page 134
What remains of the quest for immortality?......Page 141
Does cloning harm our subjective senses of who we are?......Page 143
Making babies......Page 144
The clone-family?......Page 146
Biological and social parenthood......Page 148
Cloning for the clinically infertile......Page 153
Valuing the genetic link......Page 154
Cloning might produce ‘replacement’ children for bereaved couples......Page 157
Cloning might allow lesbians to reproduce without men......Page 158
Cloning might provide a child who can also be an organ donor......Page 159
Making moral judgements about the reproductive choices of others......Page 160
Replacing a lost child?......Page 161
Cloning as a means of improving the human species?......Page 162
Clones as means to other ends?......Page 166
Clones in the popular imagination......Page 169
Liberal optimism about the truth......Page 173
Not surrendering to irrational prejudice?......Page 177
The future of human cloning......Page 179
The science of cloning......Page 182
The ethics of cloning......Page 183
GLOSSARY......Page 185
INDEX......Page 190