Cloning vs polygenics

I can scarcely decide which is truly scarier: cloning or polygenics. Quickly, polygenics is used here to define a unrestrained proliferation of genes or 'many procreative partners'. I have experienced this in teaching, where there are around eight kids genetically linked to four people. I dare not call them parents, for none raised one child, but did fascilitate their being. Moreover, hyper-polygenics, where incest at some level is included, say parent-child or sibling-sibling (half or full) or rarely, but not unheard of grandparent-child.

Given the state of polygenics, I'm almost for cloning or eugenics. The prinicple seems diabolical and will undoubtedly lead to evil, but the concept of limited cloning is not evil. Full-human embryo cloning will lead to murder in every sense of the word. By that I mean that generally a clone is developed as a spare-parts model. I could cite many fiction references, but the read can find those. If I were to suppose that the consciousness of one person be transplanted into the other in full, then still -- in another sense it is murder.

A person, grown (shudder), still has development. To stop congitive development requires either chemical castration of many sensory areas, wich may not grow back or the known extraction of the brain. While the brain is not the housing for the soul, nor is the organ the heart, clearly to remove a person's brain is to murder what that person was physically. Spiritually is another matter that I may not address here.

Even with invetro infertilization, there are often too many living embryos to successfully survive. While science has kept extracted infants less than one pound alive, it is a miracle, to say the least. Many premature children have development problems and many do not survive. In some cases when the lives of the infants are at risk, someone -- the mother -- then has a grave choice, which ones will live and which ones must not.

In this sickening mess of science and spirituality and ethics and health, I suggest that full-human cloning is not a good idea. Though the belief that a non-genetic blood substitute was to be released this year, it is not yet here. Treated bovine blood has been used on the field in places where their is little refridgeration. This treated bovine blood can be kept unrefridgerated for months. Organs, including skin, are not so universally accepted by the body. Xenotransplantation is a desperate measure that generally leads to weeks of life, not years. The cloning process of self-use only organs is a viable and inarguable need. The problem is the limitation of cloning and by what means it can occur.

************** Highly disturbing conclusion, do not read if you are easily offended **************

For this important need, stem cell reaserch is important. While some material can be gained from infantile foreskin -- it is not as usable as other obtained material (fetus). To discontinue this reasearch is patentedly stupid. It is not and will not be the be-all, end-all source and holy grail of organ growth, it is important. Already it has shown signs of success in some areas. While repugnant and sinful by some or many, it is a research worth pursuing, however it comes at many costs that are not financial.