The NY Times has a new article today about cat cloning. Read it and be disgusted. There's really no defensible argument for pet cloning. Excerpt:
Ordinarily it is hard to predict how a kitten will look when it is grown. But not for David Cheng, who plans to buy a clone of his much-loved short-haired black-and-white cat Shadow. After all, the cloning company guarantees that Shadow's successor will bear a close resemblance. [...]
Mr. Hawthorne [CEO of Genetic Savings and Clone] said all clones come with a one-year health guarantee. And, "We give an absolute, money-back guarantee for physical resemblance," he said.
And physical resemblance is all you get. Contrary to popular misconceptions, a clone doesn't necessarily act anything like the original (at least no more than a sibling would).
Then again, we do already accept pet breeding for appearance and pedigree -- "pet eugenics" (petgenics?) if you will. So if you accept that, then pet cloning may not be such a leap for you.
To their credit, I guess, Genetic Savings and Clone does host a discussion forum for people to vent against them.
Some links about pet cloning:
- Californians Against Pet Cloning
- Center for Genetics and Society's page on Pet Cloning and Genetic Engineering
Link: Hello Kitty, Hello Clone - New York Times. (It's interesting that they filed this in the Business section.)
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