semperfiona: (rain leaves)
semperfiona ([personal profile] semperfiona) wrote2005-10-11 02:29 pm
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Diane Rehm's show this morning was about the FDA making a ruling on the
safety for human consumption of food from cloned animals. (Could that
sentence be any more stilted?) Interestingly, the panelists said that
Americans seem to consider cloning of animals to be immoral. I don't get
it. If it's moral to eat animals, and it's moral to breed and farm them
for food, what difference do the methods of reproduction make? I can see
making a different moral judgment on either of the first two premises,
but I don't get the third.
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[identity profile] jr0124.livejournal.com 2005-10-11 07:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, come on - don't you know that the finger of God touches each little creature and imbues it with the spark of life? Cloning is just an affront to the miracle of creation that is God's gift of life. Even if we just brutally break the little chicken's neck to make some yummy fried chicken.

the finger of God touches each little creature and imbues it with the spark of life....

[identity profile] jilly-bear.livejournal.com 2005-10-11 07:55 pm (UTC)(link)
And He/She can't reach a laboratory test tube?

::grin::

Here's what gets me

[identity profile] dakiwiboid.livejournal.com 2005-10-11 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Would they eat twin animals? Then why not cloned ones? It's the same damned thing!

[identity profile] ohari.livejournal.com 2005-10-11 08:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Because cloning Yummy animals would lead to cloning people which would lead to people marrying their dog or their mailbox and then we'd all be in hell without our handbasket, of course. It's a first step on the slippery slope towards not discriminating against people who don't love Jesus more than everything else....and we can't have that now, can we? Not in Presiden't Bush's America.

[identity profile] ohari.livejournal.com 2005-10-11 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Please forgive my extraneous apostrophe.

[identity profile] jilly-bear.livejournal.com 2005-10-11 09:23 pm (UTC)(link)
"Dog and Cats living together - total chaos!"

Re: the finger of God touches each little creature and imbues it with the spark of life....

[identity profile] jr0124.livejournal.com 2005-10-12 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
God can reach a laboratory test tube just fine, but this clning business is from Satan, I tell you.

Or maybe it's the squirrels. ;)

Just out of curiosity...

[identity profile] bbwoof.livejournal.com 2005-10-12 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
What has the morality of a proposed activity or thing have to do with the safety of that same activity or thing? Were the panelists so mentally lame that they could not even keep the subject under discussion in their heads?

Clone: a being derived from the DNA of another being. If the first being is safe for humans to eat, then the clone of that being will also be safe to eat (given similar feeding etc), because it will be chemically and organically identical to the first being. What is the issue here?

[identity profile] gasslight.livejournal.com 2005-10-12 11:32 am (UTC)(link)
It's immoral because ignorance is





...authoritarian.

[identity profile] wyrd-sane.livejournal.com 2005-10-12 03:51 pm (UTC)(link)
I thought the FSM made all things with His Noodly Appendage.

[identity profile] wyrd-sane.livejournal.com 2005-10-12 03:58 pm (UTC)(link)
The part that my-ignorant-self is currently not comprehending about the cloning is: how the hell is it cheaper? I mean, my current understanding is you still have to grow the animal in a manner roughly similar to the way you used to, but only now it's got the same DNA as some other animal instead of only half its DNA. Last time I checked (admittedly five years ago), the process of inserting the DNA into the egg was decidedly non-trivial. So, where's the savings?
---------

And the "trump" and "Fiona" part is clicking for me now. I never actually read the Zelazny books, but I did listen to them in audio book form. Very cool! :-)
semperfiona: (dragon)

[personal profile] semperfiona 2005-10-12 04:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Designed. ACME built it; ask [livejournal.com profile] supergee of the Church of the Super Genius.
semperfiona: (liberal american voter)

Re: Just out of curiosity...

[personal profile] semperfiona 2005-10-12 04:03 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't know that the panelists believed that morality *did* have anything to do with it. But if 2/3rds of the US is agin it, the FDA may listen to the polls rather than the science. They've done it before (viz. the morning-after pill).
semperfiona: (liberal american voter)

[personal profile] semperfiona 2005-10-12 04:04 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm not sure it's meant to be cheaper; it's a way of continuing the DNA of prize animals and allowing it to become a greater proportion of the breeding stock. _Better_ food, not necessarily cheaper.

In theory.

[identity profile] sashajwolf.livejournal.com 2005-10-12 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, I have a mild moral objection based on animal welfare grounds, given that as I understand it, current experience seems to suggest that cloned animals are sicklier than ones produced in the good old-fashioned way.
semperfiona: (sleepy rosa)

[personal profile] semperfiona 2005-10-12 10:00 pm (UTC)(link)
That makes sense. Thanks!
semperfiona: (unicorn flag)

[personal profile] semperfiona 2005-10-13 01:43 am (UTC)(link)
And the "trump" and "Fiona" part is clicking for me now.

Ayup, you got it.
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