Cloning and not

2002/04/01 Arturo Elosegi Irurtia - Ekologiako katedradunaZientzia eta Teknologia Fakultatea. EHU Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Genetika

However, in the eyes of people who are against cloning, I try to know what their causes are (ethics, practices, techniques, etc. ), because I have no faith in me or my opinions. The first prize of the CAF-Elhuyar scientific articles competition has been for a work on human cloning, but now the author has not been any radio tertullian, but Leire Escajedo, professor of the Chair of Law and Human Genome of the UPV. So, and trying to learn something about the relationships cloning can have with ethics, I read Elhuyar attentively. Article published in the last issue of the magazine Zientzia eta Teknika.

One of the points treated by the author, who in his opinion conceals the lie, is the name given to therapeutic cloning. Therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning are the same technique and not different things. As I wrote at one time, I think the least is technique, and instead we would have to discuss the goals. Cloning, vaccination, tattooing or any other technique do not seem bad for me on its own, I can consider the goals as bad or good. But here, of course, we are in the field of opinions, and mine is worth nothing more than that of the reader or any other.

In the aforementioned article a series of legal and technical reasons are exposed contrary to cloning, but before any new technique, such as in vitro fertilization, there may be many technical and legal problems, but no one faces them (today). So what makes cloning so debatable? The real reason that Leire Escajedo is against (or at least in favor of) cloning does not seem to be in the arguments developed throughout the article, but in the opinion given to us in the last sentence, the passage. It literally says that cloning is a "technique that violates the processes of nature".

This has surprised me and I have tried to delimit the border between the techniques that violate and not the natural processes. But the more I try, the more diffuse I see everything. Has the oil that has been buried for millions of years left 3,000 meters deep, burning and climate change on a whole planet is a violation of nature? Promote the most violent expiration period ever known to life? And synthesize a new non-existent element in nature? If a cold fusion was achieved, would that be a violation of the processes of nature?

Yes, I go too far, I have fallen into sophistry. We talk about man and therapeutic. But here too the questions come to mind. Is the integration of the organ of a dead person into a life a violation of nature? And the incorporation of the organ of an animal? Or the incorporation of an artificial organ (a robot, in short)? What about in vitro fertilization? Or keep the person who has the heart standing (therefore, what in his day would have been declared dead) tied to a machine? And keeping someone with kidney disease alive with dialysis? Is not the law of nature the death of the serious sick? Why does the removal of the core and the integration of nature into one cell violate, but not the removal of one part of the bone marrow to another? Or remove some genes from a bacteria and put them in a plant?

Obviously, I have nothing clear what violates the processes of nature and what not. But I think this is the argument that basically used by those who oppose cloning, if not evident, and from there they construct all their reasoning. But the basic premise, at least I don't see it. Will anyone define me what it is to violate the processes of nature? Will anyone explain to me, regardless of religion, why do my co-workers who work in the cloning of nature violate nature? And I said on the sidelines of religion, because from religion any Jew is able to explain clearly why eat ham sin, why you can not drink wine in any Muslim, why you can not eat beef in any Hindu, why do ablation to girls in any ethiopia and why any Catholic is sin condom. I am a scholar.