Clones are people too

I watched the news this morning.

I watched Australia pass a law allowing cloned human embryos to be used for experimentation. I believe embryos (cloned or otherwise) are human, and should be therefore treated with dignity and respect. I don't think they should be used in experiments. I don't think we should be happy with legislation which refuses human rights to those who are human (however tiny they might be).

I am dismayed that treatments will be developed based on treating people like this. It creates a two-class system of humanity (where we already have so many class-type systems), and means we move further away from trying to have in our society, structures which protect the weak and vulnerable.

Possibly we will find cures for diseases, but there is no guarantee that this will happen. It seems profoundly unfair that we would deny one group of people the right to even take a breath, so that other people (who can afford it), might possibly be given a cure for a disease, which could be achieved by other means. (Research using adult stem cells has had much better results than research using embryonic stem cells - the lobby group for the latter having a lot more publicity because they have a group of celebrities and a running controversy to attract media attention).

I think we made a very bad decision. Not only will this destroy the lives of cloned embryos, it will damage us. Whenever we choose to make ourselves superior to other people it affects who we become.