Letter to the Editor/GUEST COMMENTARY on cloning: approximately 585 words
not including titles and letterhead.

 
   Published September 2002

  The Daily Times; Salisbury, MD

  The Salisbury News & Advertiser, Salisbury, MD

SOLUTIONS CREATE QUESTIONS

        As a writer with a background in literature/communications and science, I have been able to
  translate scientific jargon into an understandable form of journalism. Penning articles on organ 
  transplants, and the like, has been more manageable than writing about cellular manipulation. But
  several years ago I began researching cloning and writing a novel on it ( "Thy Brothers' Reaper")
  which, unknowingly then, was a harbinger of what is happening today. My goal in the book was
  to bring about deliberation over replicating humans for what could turn into ill-intended purposes. 
  In today's era of intrusive surveillance and tracking, "Big Brother-ism," implanted chips, bar codes
  for everything, and globalism vs nationalism, eugenics could be used to advance the dictates of
  any shadow group or power-mongers in this portended "Brave New World " Order, such as the
  forgoing of our rights under states of emergencies, whether real or contrived, guarded by, say, 
  a cloned national guard. What if–another example–some charismatic lunatic were to convince the
  masses that creating a society of the strongest, brightest, and healthiest individuals would
  behoove us in the future? Sound familiar? Hitler's eradication of millions of innocent people, and
  Nietzsche's philosophy of begetting a "superbreed" of humans through genotypic selection prove
  how far unrestrained experimentation can go when left in the hands of unbridled groups. Does that
  mean if we create the most durable humans that we should ignore, eclipse, or even "liquidate" our
  sick, our poor, our hungry so as to rid us--who live on an already overpopulated planet--of those
  who are not the "survival of the fittest"? Equally horrible through our molecular juggling is the
  possibility of transmutating genes that could result in aberrant beings. Should these beings, then,
  and those who aren't members of the perfect "designer-genes" society, be purged? Scrimmage 
  genetics results in fumbles. The word genocide is a derivative of "genetics." Or consider what
  position we should take when we're able to custom-blueprint our children at "pick-your-own"
  centers that propagate gene selection for our offsprings' eye color, hair color, height, sex? Perhaps
  parents won't even have to worry about their lab-made children becoming sick, degenerative, 
  terminal, or simply old, because scientific high-technology will have altered or removed those
  genes that would diminish us as fallible humans... and maybe they would even make us immortal.
  And if a clone–assuming it would be mortal–were to die, would its death be that of a human being
  or just a "being"? Where, then, is the sanctity of human life in all this? The issue is a complex 
  one with beneficial aspects and unspeakable ones. Yes, cloning can help those with spinal injuries,
  AIDS, and other diseases. And I deeply appreciate the importance of therapeutic genetics, so
  much so that I accept the need for cloning viable, healthy organs for the hundreds-of-thousands
  needing transplants. .  . but where do we draw the line on faux pas humans? What are the ethical,
  religious, and political ramifications? Do we throw out the principles of our forefathers just for the
  advancement of science or commercial interests? As it is, the debate over cloning is actually a
  moot point, according to a the Lexington Herald Leader (09-02-01; Martin Cothran): " ... the
  scientific community does not disagree with [cloning]; it [only] disagrees on when to do it.
  " Imagine: Creating entirely new creatures from existing ones. I wonder if they will have "spirit." 
  One of the characters in my novel asks the same question and is answered by, "Only God puts
  souls in humans."
  Nan DeVincent-Hayes, Ph.D
  Note: Hayes, of Salisbury, Maryland, is a college professor, 14-book author and writer of major
  commercial magazines and author of her novel on cloning, "Thy Brothers' Reaper," that has been
  optioned by movie companies.
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