> Let's say that I need to harvest the organs to continue to live.
> Hell yes, I'd be dieing!!!!
> To put this another way ... Say I had a lot of money, and I needed a
> liver. Say there was someone in Haiti whose family was desperately poor,
> but who had a liver that I could use. Would I give that person's family
> some of my money and then kill that person his liver. Yep.
For another aspect of the relative value of life arguments that can
derive from organ donor possibilities, see almost any book by Larry Niven.
His future history contains a period in which nearly all crimes are
punishable by death, the deceased's organs to be promptly parcelled out to
law-abiding citizens in need. The implications become nightmarish, as
aging and ailing citizens vote for this harsh penalty for more and more
minor crimes. This era ends when synthetic organ technologies advance to
the point where the sacrifice of humans is no longer necessary to provide
acceptable organs.
Though the criminals in question are not clones, they are another category
of person that can be categorized as non-person in case of something else
being judged by those in power to take precedence, as has happened before
to racial and religious minority groups, females, the mentally disabled,
the poor, etc. at various times in history. It is important to keep in
mind what exactly one is compromising if one decides that a particular
category of individuals does not qualify for human rights.
I find the idea of revocation of human rights on the basis of having a
single genetic parent even less acceptable than discrimination on the
basis of beliefs, much less acceptable than discrimination based on
criminal behaviour, and about even with discriminaton on the basis of
gender, melanin level, blood type, or other genetically based categories.
--Eva
"Mrs. Grey"