Right to Clone

H&R features a bizarre GOP ad wherein it is claimed, inter alia, that the law on stem cell research contains a loophole that makes cloning a constitutional right: (http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/10/wheres_tina_yot.shtml#016197).

I am pretty sure that the legislature doesn’t have the authority to make constitutional rights or to diminish them, although that has never stopped them from doing so. We already have a recognized constitutional right to reproduce, and I don’t see why that wouldn’t extend to reproduction by cloning. It is really nobody’s business but my own if I decide to clone myself. What would be so bad about another Vache Folle running around, except this time with meaningful guidance and a chance to get it right?

And I ought to be able to do as I please with the blob of cells that results from putting my DNA into an egg until that blob becomes a person, provided that I obtained title to the egg. I don’t have any eggs, being male, but if I did, I should be able to sell them or give them away without let or hindrance from anyone, especially Patricia Heaton. Mind your own business, crazy actress lady.

This would apply equally to cells that result from the ordinary union of egg and sperm. Until a person comes into being, those cells should be available for any use by their owners. If I want to run a blastocyst farm for fun and profit, I should be able to do so. Those cells in petrie dishes are never going to become persons, so nobody is harmed and government has no legitimate interest in what I do with them, unless I throw them at passers by or some such thing.

Those frozen embryos in fertility clinics? They’ll never be people, either, so why not put them to some good use?

My carpool buddy claims that blastocysts are potential people and that potential people have the same rights as actual people. This strikes me as ridiculous. If I take a blastocyst and implant it in a womb and all goes well, a person may emerge. If I have intercourse with a fertile woman and ejaculate and the sperm fertilizes an egg which becomes implanted and all goes well, a person may emerge. Does that mean my sperm was a potential person with rights? If so, I am a mass murderer. If I ingest food, some of it may be used by my body in the production of sperm which… yadda yadda yadda… a person may emerge. Does that make my supper a potential person with rights?

I don’t think my carpool buddy really believes that potential people have the same rights as actual people. He doesn’t regard his small children as having full civil rights, and he bosses them around all the time rather than treating them as equals. He is OK with age restrictions on booze, tobacco and porn. He does not, however, condone killing or tormenting children, and, in fairness, I suppose he is mainly concerned with the right not to be killed or tortured. Why he reckons a blob of cells in a petrie dish qualifies for such rights is beyond me.