Send In The Clones

Posting Date: 03/02/2001

Many Americans think cloning is a bad idea, according to a Time/CNN poll conducted by telephone in early February.. When pressed about how they felt about cloning and why, 28 percent of those polled think that cloning will be justified if it were to produce vital organs used to save the lives of others. Twenty-one percent said cloning would be acceptable if used to save the life of a person being cloned. And 20 percent felt it was okay for an infertile couple to have a child using cloning.

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One of the reasons many people feel cloning is bad is, of course, religion. Thirty-four percent, one-third of you, cited religious beliefs as a primary reason for opposition. But I don't know how they interpreted that word when they asked the question. Are you opposed to it for yourself or if I were to do it? See, that's really the political issue, isn't it? Twenty-two percent say they are opposed because cloning interferes with human distinctiveness and individuality.

Another 22 percent oppose it because cloning could be used for questionable purposes, like breeding a superior race or cloning an army. Sixty-nine percent think it's against God's will to clone human beings.

Well, if it were against God's will, wouldn't he just kill all the cloners? Wouldn't he just stop it on his own? I don't quite understand that. Isn't this country wonderful because you get the right to believe what you want to? But where we all get into trouble is when some people feel they have the right to inflict their beliefs on others.