March 03, 2006
Cloning - this scares me
ok, so mainly because of an Ethan Hawke obsession among my friends in middle school, i saw the movie Gattaca a few years back. Watching it gave me quite the chills, and i've never forgotten the gist of this movie - highlighted by it's tagline "There Is No Gene For The Human Spirit. "
I've been paying some attention to the discussions of cloning in the news, and recently came across an article in a magazine here that discussed commercial cloning. The main picture with the article was this woman holding a clone of her cat... she had a new version of her old cat made after it died. In the same article they discussed the present state of human genetic analysis and modification, including the options of removing genetic flaws and sex-selection. (of course, such options are only available to those who have a significant amount of money to spend on it, but they are available nonetheless) This scares me.
It immefiately brought to mind Gattaca, and the issues that the movie raises about the ethics of genetic manipulation... and now companies like Clonaid use quotes like this
If you just lost a beloved family member and would like to see an identical twin of him/her live again,
to promote their services. This absolutely terrifies - and disgusts me. We are now taking the proverbial step of playing God and who are we to claim that we are so sophisticated, ethically justified, or even just downright responsible enough to take on that sort of role? where is this going to end?
Plotline from Gattaca:
Gattaca Corp. is an aerospace firm in the future. During this time society analyzes your DNA and determines where you belong in life. Ethan Hawke's character was born with a congenital heart condition which would cast him out of getting a chance to travel in space. So in turn he assumes the identity of an athlete who has genes that would allow him to achieve his dream of space travel.
(from imdb.com)Posted by lara at March 3, 2006 12:59 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.wasowski.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/8
