THE ONLY POST I WILL MAKE ON CLONING<\/b>: First, if you want my take on it, check the links-list to your left. Second, I\u2019m sure Ramesh Ponnuru will get around to this eventually, but here\u2019s my take on the only actual argument<\/a> put forward by a pro-cloning blogger so far in this round. (Oh, and before I get there, Virginia Postrel<\/a> today strongly implies that there\u2019s no point in having these arguments because none of us will change our minds. Well, Ponnuru did<\/a>\u2013if not in the way she\u2019d prefer. And in general, these \u201cwhat\u2019s the point?\u201d arguments never get much traction with me, especially on pro-life issues. I co-founded the Yale Pro-Life League. If memory serves, only two out of seven[?] members of its first executive board had come to college pro-life. Four of the seven were atheists. So yeah, it\u2019s worth going over this stuff again. Moreover, I frankly haven\u2019t seen much response to Ponnuru\u2019s excellent points<\/a>, which rely on reason rather than intuition.)<\/p>\n Anyway. Ananda Gupta raises a few points<\/b>: 1) \u201c[Ponnuru] trots out the old \u2018they can\u2019t draw a defensible line of demarcation as to when killing human beings is wrong\u2019 argument. So what? I can\u2019t draw a defensible line of demarcation as to when people should be allowed to drive<\/b>, and no one else can either, given the variability of physical capability and hand-eye coordination among humans. It\u2019s arbitrary.\u201d 2) \u201cEarlier Ponnuru argued that inarticulate knowledge can be genuine, but now he demands an argument for pro-cloners\u2019 choice of lines to draw. <\/b>I don\u2019t have one, but I don\u2019t think I need one. All I need is to point out that if we are going to require all public policies and philosophical worldviews to have clearly articulated arguments supporting them, then NR <\/i>and NRO might as well merge with The Nation<\/i> and get it over with, because such a requirement is un-conservative at its core.\u201d But more importantly, if Gupta\u2019s really suggesting that \u201cintuitions\u201d are sufficient for political decisions, forget about merging with The Nation<\/i>\u2013all political magazines should just disappear. These magazines present arguments. Those arguments typically rest on a basis of reason, experience, and shared premises. If somebody argues for any controversial ethical position\u2013the death penalty is wrong; you shouldn\u2019t use Napster; it\u2019s OK to clone; it\u2019s not OK to clone; whatever\u2013I expect some explanation, some reason for the position.<\/p>\n 3) \u201cPonnuru leaves out another major consequence of his anti-cloning (and pro-life generally) intuition, which is that women who have abortions or even negligent miscarriages would have to be treated as murderers<\/b> \u2014 with penalties of life imprisonment or execution. Is Ponnuru willing to flip that switch?\u201d<\/p>\n First, this isn\u2019t relevant to the cloning discussion, since one might believe that a cloned embryo is a human but a woman\u2019s right to bodily integrity trumps that embryo\u2019s right to life. I don\u2019t agree with this, but it is possible to accept the pro-life case against cloning but not the pro-life case against abortion.<\/p>\n Second, and more importantly, there\u2019s a reason that pre-legalization abortion prosecutions didn\u2019t focus on the mother. Everyone understands that abortion is an act often done in desperation. In some cases, the woman may have limited or false information about the nature of her fetus\u2013that\u2019s one reason that pro-lifers have pushed for \u201cright to know\u201d legislation. It\u2019s appropriate to treat a woman who committed a grave evil out of desperation more leniently than the person who profited from her desperation. Basically, this is wrongful killing, but it\u2019s not like every other kind of killing: You can\u2019t see the victim, it\u2019s often impossible to tell by looking that you\u2019re killing a human, and it\u2019s typically sought (especially were it to become illegal) only by women who are in dire straits already. So again, penalties should focus on the abortionist, not the mother. The mother would also rightly face legal penalties\u2013since we do have moral responsibility, even when we\u2019re desperate\u2013but I don\u2019t think they should be simple repetitions of our penalties for infanticide. And, like all laws, they should not be retroactive\u2013women who had abortions last year should not be penalized for them.<\/p>\n 4) \u201cWhat about women who smoke or drink during pregnancy? Do we call in the Department of Social Services?<\/b>\u201d All that said, Gupta is one of the few pro-cloning bloggers to really respond to anti-cloning claims. I\u2019m replying to her post at length because I thought it raised difficult and necessary questions. The legal-penalties question, especially, is something I welcome response about (Yaeger?)\u2013but again, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s directly relevant to the issue of embryo-destructive research (the set of which therapeutic\/research cloning is a subset).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE ONLY POST I WILL MAKE ON CLONING: First, if you want my take on it, check the links-list to your left. Second, I\u2019m sure Ramesh Ponnuru will get around to this eventually, but here\u2019s my take on the only actual argument put forward by a pro-cloning blogger so far in this round. (Oh, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Uh, right, but if you get the answer wrong, nobody dies. It\u2019s just weird to say that because some line-drawing can rightly be left to a general, intuitive sense\u2013which will be more or less arbitrary\u2013all <\/i>line-drawing should be arbitrary.<\/p>\n
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Actually, unless I misunderstood his piece, Ponnuru was arguing that just because most people who oppose cloning can\u2019t really explain why, that doesn\u2019t mean there are no good arguments for their position. He was trying to combat the Reason<\/i>-magazine mentality that all opposition to cloning is motivated by fear of Frankenstein. (And in fact, Postrel and others have recently given at least token credit to the pro-life arguments against cloning, so perhaps Ponnuru\u2019s point here made some impact.)<\/p>\n
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Assuming that we\u2019re talking about women who smoke or drink enough to severely endanger their unborn children, we\u2019re talking about child abuse here, or possibly neglect. But like many cases of child neglect, it would be extraordinarily hard to prosecute in a country with (rightly) strong privacy protections. And I\u2019m not sure whether we could really do much about this, frankly\u2013it\u2019s not like standing trial and going to jail would have a positive <\/i>effect on the kid. However, this is in no way an argument against the pro-life position. First, you figure out whether the embryo is a human life worthy of protection. Then, you worry about cases where protecting that child may be difficult or impossible. You don\u2019t argue, \u201cSometimes it\u2019ll be difficult to protect an embryo. It may be so difficult that sometimes we shouldn\u2019t do it, because what we\u2019d have to do to protect the embryo is wrong. Therefore, the embryo isn\u2019t a human life!\u201d One reason you shouldn\u2019t argue like that is that the same argument can be made about a three-year-old child. The other reason, though, is that it\u2019s illogical.<\/p>\n