Ethics of cloning and genetic engineering in humans

I waive per the rules and wish my opponent good luck.

I Rebuttal: Con round 2, BoP
 
I.a My opponent declares that I have the burden of proof only because I am Pro, and uses Wikipedia as his source for definition of BoP? One problem with Wiki’s definition: What if my opponent makes an argument that I oppose? Am I supposed to provide his BoP? I don’t think so. To wit:“Cloning and genetic engineering on humans is a relatively new concept only introduced in the past few decades.” A declaration that is unsourced, by the way. 
 
I.a.1 That is, the 19thcentury Charles Darwin; the one who wrote On the Origin of Species [1859],  just in case my opponent happens to be living next door to a botanist of the same name who may have been the origin of his quote. Not a very good botanist, because his ancestor wrote and published a volume in 1862 [not a few decades ago] titled, On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised [sic]by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing. While not “cloning” in the traditional sense, it is genetic engineering though Darwin did not call it that. 
 
I.a.2 Yes, I hear my opponent crying “Foul!”Yes, he did say,“human cloning,”didn’t he? Let’s refer to the President’s Council on Bioethics: “…consider the emerging interest in cloningfor biomedical research, a prospect connected to the recent isolation of embryonic stem cells…”[1] This report was published in 2002, but it further speaks to earlier “emerging interest,” and experimentation in cloning of animals by embryologist, Hans Spemann in his 1938 book, Embryonic Development and Induction.In it, he discussed the possibility of what actually came to pass in 1952,[2] nearly 70 years ago, not a“few decades;”a procedure now calledinvitro fertilization,to which I referred in my round 1. Not to ignore Darwin’s follow-on volume, Descent of Man[1871]. That is the last research for BoP I will perform for my opponent.
 
I.b My opponent also declares [also unsourced] “Cloning and genetic engineering could have consequences that should be seriously considered, and this should mean that [I]should have to prove cloning and genetic engineering would be beneficial.”  As above in I.a, and for the same justification, I declare that my opponent has the BoP of this claim. Not to mention that I am charged with suddenly justifying “beneficial” when the subject of the debate is “ethical.” The two terms are not synonymous.  Ethics is not bound by benefit; only that it meets conditions of proper behavior. I’ll add a comment where my opponent failed to make one in definition of the debate: On this site, BoP is typically shared.
 
1.c My opponent  declared “A paper published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Biomedical Science states that the “repercussions” of cloning and genetic engineering ‘are still unknown.’” [9]  The first problem is that, while the reference is given as [9], that reference number, nor citation appears at the bottom of his list of references. Provide it, please. It is a challengeable declaration, to wit:being unknown, how is an unknown declared as harmful? 
 
I.c.1 The Journal of Biomedical Science [the source of [9]] began in 1999. The advent of successful human cloning as we understand the basic term as duplicating a single, separate organism, of which invitrois merely a sub-set using the genetic material of two individuals, has not yet occurred, which is why my round 1 argument placed it in the 23rdcentury, as a fiction. I should say the practice’s potential for harm is as unknown as can be, and declaring it so before the transit from unknown to known is accomplished, all predictions, even those of probability [of which science I happen to be a professional Six Sigma Black Belt, retired] is scientifically irresponsible. The harm is pure theory. 
 
My opponent asked: “How can you endorse cloning and genetic engineering if it would have these horrible effects?”
 
Even my opponent concludes his argument 1.1A, “There are many other unknowns to take into account when considering this process, which I shall not list since it would be childish to guess.” I take my opponent at his word.
 
II Rebuttal removed for brevity.
III Rebuttal: Con Round 2, Arg 1.1“Of course, [cloning] is an expensive process”
 
III.a Of course it is, if you are attempting it now, 21stcentury. But my argument is in the 23rdcentury. What is, and is not expensive is defined by a term that Con introduced in his round 2, through the Journal of Biomedical Science: unknown.  It is a direct quote from [9], what ever that is, but, fortunately, Con quoted it, so it is known to be unknown. Is that clear enough? Then what follows in my opponent’s argument on the matter of this unknown-expense claim, including the claim of a flawed government system, and discrimination [as if we don’t have the latter today without cloning and genetic engineering] is also… you get the point. And so much for the conclusion of my opponent’s round 2, Argument 1.1B “The effects caused by cloning and genetic engineering would cause dire physical and Societal consequences.”
 
III.a.1 Leaving the argument at “unknown” would have been a far more sustainable argument. Prediction is such a difficult prospect to prove, which is why even current polling, as scientifically based as it is [it is, if done correctly], has too many variables in a subject that that has not one successful human trial [at least that has scientific peer review] to conclude anything of the sort Con suggests in his 1.1B conclusion, which is unsourced.
 
IV Rebuttal: Con Round 2, Arg 1.2 The [unsourced] Security State
 
IV.a This entire rebuttal would be a repeat of my round 2, I, II, and III rebuttals, so, I’ll leave IV as a re-read request to readers, since the previous rebuttals have the only arguments I need, except for a singular example Con raised as a singular path his “security State would have: “Let us imagine a child has been genetically engineered before birth. This would cause the hospital to have to store their genetic information, which would in turn allow the government to have access to the child’s genetic information.”Rebuttal: the hospital can dump the genetic information, since we are imagining. 
 
IV.a.1 As for Con’s Arg 1.2 question to me: “How can you endorse cloning and genetic engineering if it would lead to fatal overreach by the government?” I reply: If is the least utilitarian word because it acknowledges only that which is currently not true.[3] Therefore, the ethics, except for successfully rebutted arguments by Pro, are unknown [see my round 3, Rebuttals I, II, III, IV].
 
V Rebuttal: Con Round 2, Arg 1.3 “All the same”
 
V.1 My opponent declares [unsourced]: “Cloning and genetic engineering would cause all humans to become the same.” Let me recall a source from my round 1:
https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Genetics-vs-Genomics
which stipulates, by my interpretation [the source was used for the percentage factor noted] that “Such trait arguments [as Con proposes in his Arg 1.3]are bigotry, boring in the extreme as just another reason to discriminate when, beneath the skin, other than by the very detailed demands of DNA, we are over 99.9% identical” anyway. And yet, even with that narrow diversity, look at what natural selection accomplishes in variety. Why would cloning and genetic engineering [I infer both processes are involved in my argument, not one or the other] want to limit the diversity? Clone 7 billion people [our current approximate world population], what do you have? Only 7 billion duplicates. Only. Hint: we’re not all the same, are we? Yet Con’s argument conclusion says we are. Are you, dear readers, convinced by Con’s unsourced argument, or Pro’s rebuttal, a justified source merely by trying to find your duplicates in the wide world? You are your source for my argument. Are you and your proposed duplicate unethical? Particularly since youmay be the clone.
 
VI Argument: What if…?
 
VI.a I will challenge my opponent on two principles: Only for argument’s sake, violating my comments, post #4, not as a justification of my argument, but as a presentation of ethical behavior relative to the debate subject, but not as you might think:
1.    Show me the verse and surrounding context from the Holy Bible, in either Testament, that declares, by God’s decree, that we must not clone ourselves.
2.    Show me the verse and surrounding context from the Holy Bible, in either Testament, that declares, by God’s decree, that a clone is any less a child of God[4] than a human born of natural means by two parents, male and female [the only combination capable of naturally producing a child, in spite of our “enlightenment” of an alphabet of genders]. 
 
In fact, considering just the M & F of that alphabet, we know that for some would-be parents, the only possibility of conception is by the perfectly acceptable ethic of in vitrofertilization, resulting, often, in multiple simultaneous divisions of the original zygote. Do these divisions entirely exist outside the definition of cloning?
 
 
 

CON = nmvarco = CLONING and GENETIC ENGINEERING in HUMANS is UNETHICAL
PRO = fauxlaw = CLONING and GENETIC ENGINEERING in HUMANS is ETHICAL
THBT: CLONING and GENETIC ENGINEERING in HUMANS is UNETHICAL
OPENING STATEMENTS
I thank PRO for a productive debate so far. In this round, I hope to rebut his arguments. CORRECTION:

• Source number 9 in my R2 argument is supposed to be source number 8.

REB 2.1: BURDEN OF PROOF

• PRO says:
  
• “To wit:’Cloning and genetic engineering on humans is a relatively new concept only introduced in the past few decades.’ A declaration that is unsourced, by the way.“
  
• Dolly the sheep was created in 1996 [1]. Human genetic engineering was endorsed by the American National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine in 2017 [2]. A decade [noun] is defined as “a group, set, or series of ten,” in this case, it represents a set of 10 years [3]. Therefore I think it is safe to say that cloning and genetic engineering is a relatively new concept only introduced in the past few decades.
  
• PRO says:
  
• “The advent of successful human cloning as we understand the basic term as duplicating a single, separate organism, of which invitrois merely a sub-set using the genetic material of two individuals, has not yet occurred, which is why my round 1 argument placed it in the 23rdcentury, as a fiction. I should say the practice’s potential for harm is as unknown as can be, and declaring it so before the transit from unknown to known is accomplished, all predictions, even those of probability [of which science I happen to be a professional Six Sigma Black Belt, retired] is scientifically irresponsible. The harm is pure theory.”
  
• My opponent’s argument seems to be that even though it is harmful now, it won’t be in the future [unsourced, for the record]. Under that logic, let’s start nuking cities (Yay!), because by the 23rd century we’ll have power shields that can protect us from nukes.
  
• PRO says:
  
• “Not a very good botanist, because his ancestor wrote and published a volume in 1862 [not a few decades ago] titled, On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised [sic]by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing. While not “cloning” in the traditional sense, it is genetic engineering though Darwin did not call it that.”
  
• This is like calling children of interracial marriages products of genetic engineering. The crossbreeding of plants was caused by a natural process, not a modified one using the tools of science.
  
• PRO says:
  
• “to wit:being unknown, how is an unknown declared as harmful?”
  
• If you were having open-heart surgery, and the doctor said that the implications were an unknown, how would you feel?
  
• PRO says:
  
• “Let’s refer to the President’s Council on Bioethics: “…consider the emerging interest in cloning for biomedical research, a prospect connected to the recent isolation of embryonic stem cells…”[1] This report was published in 2002, but it further speaks to earlier “emerging interest,” and experimentation in cloning of animals by embryologist, Hans Spemann in his 1938 book, Embryonic Development and Induction.”
  
• I don’t understand how “emerging interest” correlates to legalizing the process. Using our example for before, let’s say 65% of people respond to a poll saying that they want to nuke cities. A paper on the subject classifies this as “emerging interest,” so therefore we start nuking cities (again).
  
• Therefore, because there are so many unknowns, as PRO admits:
  
• “‘There are many other unknowns to take into account when considering this process, which I shall not list since it would be childish to guess.’ I take my opponent at his word.”
  
• and cloning and genetic engineering are such new processes, I believe PRO must have the Burden of Proof.

REB 2.2: CLONING AS AN EXPENSIVE PROCESS

• PRO says:
  
• “But my argument is in the 23rdcentury...Then what follows in my opponent’s argument on the matter of this unknown-expense claim, including the claim of a flawed government system, and discrimination...”
  
• I fail to see how PRO’s argument (or better phrased, prediction) is somehow valid but mine is not. I presented my prediction as a counter to PRO’s and I was inclined to believe that he would accept it as he had presented his own prediction, but it seems as there is a double standard.
  
• PRO says:
  
• “Prediction is such a difficult prospect to prove”
  
• I would like voters to read this comment and afterwards read the entirety of PRO’s R1 argument.
  
• NOTE: PREDICTIONS ARE HARD TO PROVE
  
• WHY?
  
• Because no one is a time traveler.
  

• CONCLUSION: I request that from this point onwards, both sides refrain from presenting a predicted future.

I dismiss PRO’s Rebuttal IV for reasons mentioned above, as the entirety of this argument was based on an unproven, possible future.
REB 2.3: ALL THE SAME

• PRO says:
  
• “by my interpretation [the source was used for the percentage factor noted] that “Such trait arguments [as Con proposes in his Arg 1.3]are bigotry, boring in the extreme as just another reason to discriminate when, beneath the skin, other than by the very detailed demands of DNA, we are over 99.9% identical.”
  
• I fail to see how these traits can be dismissed. If you can engineer the traits of your child, I can assure you that some parents would wish for their child to be tall, Norwegian, and strong, or other traits supposedly desirable. This is a prediction, although I hope PRO can agree with me on this.
  
• PRO says:
  
• “Hint: we’re not all the same, are we? Yet Con’s argument conclusion says we are. Are you, dear readers, convinced by Con’s unsourced argument, or Pro’s rebuttal, a justified source merely by trying to find your duplicates in the wide world?”
  
• It seems PRO has contradicted himself in merely a few sentences. He says that my argument says we all are the same (which, in fact, was not what I said, instead, I proposed a possible future where all humans could all become the same) but just a few sentences earlier, quoted himself saying that “we are over 99.9% identical” and the other parts of us that are not identical don’t matter and “are bigotry.”

REB 2.4: WHAT IF?

• PRO says:
  
• “I will challenge my opponent on two principles: Only for argument’s sake, violating my comments, post #4, not as a justification of my argument, but as a presentation of ethical behavior relative to the debate subject, but not as you might think: 1. Show me the verse and surrounding context from the Holy Bible, in either Testament, that declares, by God’s decree, that we must not clone ourselves. 2. Show me the verse and surrounding context from the Holy Bible, in either Testament, that declares, by God’s decree, that a clone is any less a child of God than a human born of natural means by two parents, male and female [the only combination capable of naturally producing a child, in spite of our “enlightenment” of an alphabet of genders].”
  
• I will not do that, as the section I have placed this debate in is “Society” (as noted by PRO in comment #4) and I am not going to use a “religious morality” (also said by PRO in comment #4).
  
• PRO says:
  
• “In fact, considering just the M & F of that alphabet, we know that for some would-be parents, the only possibility of conception is by the perfectly acceptable ethic of in vitro fertilization, resulting, often, in multiple simultaneous divisions of the original zygote. Do these divisions entirely exist outside the definition of cloning?”
  
• Yes, as noted by my definition of cloning, “to create a clone of.” The purpose of IVF is not to create twins or triplets even though these are relatively common. If PRO believes it is, then women pregnant with twins have cloned a human being.

SOURCES
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_(sheep)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_therapy#Human_genetic_engineering
[3] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/decade#Noun
CON passes the talking feather to PRO.

CON = nmvarco = CLONING and GENETIC ENGINEERING in HUMANS is UNETHICAL
PRO = fauxlaw = CLONING and GENETIC ENGINEERING in HUMANS is ETHICAL
THBT: CLONING and GENETIC ENGINEERING in HUMANS is UNETHICAL
OPENING STATEMENTS
I thank PRO for a productive debate that has concluded. In this round, I hope to rebut his arguments effectively.
REB 3.1: BURDEN OF PROOF ON HUMAN CLONING ETHICS

• PRO says:
  
• “I.a Con’s rebuttal 2.1 Burden of Proof declared that Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1966, and that is just a few decades ago. Granted, but Dolly is not human; she is, therefore, off-topic. Off-topic is not a legitimate argument or rebuttal.”
  
• This is not off-topic, rather quite on-topic. Sheep are quite similar to humans and have been used as human replacements in brain and throat research [1][2], as well as other things.
  
• NOTE: Dolly the Sheep was cloned in 1996, not 1966.
  
• PRO says:
  
• “I.b Arguing that “human genetic engineering was endorsed by the American National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine” as my opponent generously offered in round 3, 2.1, is an argument for the ethics of human genetic engineering. Thank you. I agree.”
  
• The American National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine are not ethic committees. Therefore they have endorsed genetic engineering for medical reasons rather than ethical ones. Yet PRO says in the next sentence (in wrongly-named rebuttal d):
  
• “I.d My opponent is certainly arguing for the potential of harm, when I claim it is unknown. And, I repeat: the debate is about ethics, not benefit. Let’s stay on point.”
  
• Therefore the fact that the American National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine have endorsed genetic engineering can not be used as a valid argument on PRO’s side.
  
• PRO has failed to rebut any other parts of my REB 2.1, excepting these discrepancies on Dolly the Sheep.
  

REB 3.2: EXPENSE OF CLONING

• PRO says:
  
• “II.a Who said anything about expense? Con. Who said cloning was expensive? Con. So why is Con rebutting a subject I did not raise? No relevance; no need to counter Con’s argument. So it may be expensive. That has naught to do with ethics. Let’s stay on point.”
  
• As PRO pointed out, I brought up the topic of expense (which, if cloning and genetic engineering were legal and expensive, would cause a significant disparity in rates of cloning and genetic engineering and income and possibly a new form of discrimination, and I was simply defending my own argument after you had rebutted it. If everything in a debate was rebuttals, then there could be no opening arguments and therefore no debate.
  
• PRO says:
  
• “II.b Con entered an argument from his round 2, Arg 1.2 regarding the Security State. Revised in round 3, Pro stated, “Conclusion: The effects caused by cloning and genetic engineering would cause fatal overreach of the government’s powers. Therefore, cloning and genetic engineering is unethical.” Pro even bolded this entire statement, so it must be an important argument. However, as I noted in my round 2 rebuttal, the entire claim was and still is unsourced. Sorry, I do not accept Pro’s credentials, which, with regard to creds, are listed as “unknown.” A prevailing condition in this debate.”
  
• As I said in REB 2.2, I still do not understand why my unsourced claim/prediction is somehow inferior to PRO’s unsourced claim/prediction that was a large part of his R1 argument. If PRO would wish to explain this in the comments, I would be delighted.
  
• PRO has failed to rebut the entirety of REB 2.2, instead bringing up old arguments.

REB 3.3: ALL THE SAME

• PRO says:
  
• “III.a I am acknowledging the 99.9% sameness of humans, but I am also saying that in the 0.01% there is grand diversity, not sameness. That is not a contradiction; it is an augmentation.”
  
• That still does not satisfy my question as PRO said in his R1 that considering the 0.01% of us that is not similar is “bigotry.”

REB 3.4: WHAT IF?

• PRO says:
  
• “IV.1 Con says, in the end, “…pregnant women with twins have cloned a human being.”  I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. First, the woman has done nothing of the sort. She did not “cause” the twins; it was a natural, relatively infrequent act of nature over which the woman had zero, zip, zappo control. However, second, and thus my quandary, if my opponent wishes to hold on to his argument, he has, once again, argued for the ethics of cloning in acknowledging that twinning occurs, and he did not rebut it. Thank you, I gratefully accept the endorsement.”
  
• This is grossly taken out of context. Let us read the original comment written by myself:
  
• “Yes, as noted by my definition of cloning, “to create a clone of.” The purpose of IVF is not to create twins or triplets even though these are relatively common. If PRO believes it is, then women pregnant with twins have cloned a human being.”
  
• I had used this example to demonstrate the absurdity of PRO’s argument. I was simply saying that twins and triplets are relatively common for women who have received IVF treatment and this is not considered cloning, as PRO had asked me if I believed IVF was cloning technology, which it obviously is not, and if PRO thinks that I would believe that then he must all think that I believe that women pregnant with twins have cloned someone.
  
• PRO has failed to rebut the first section of my REB 2.4 concerning religious morality.

REB 3.5: PLAYING GOD

• When PRO was accepted this debate, he had two conditions, one of which was that “Con cannot use a religious morality [playing God, for example] to argue against the premise, since "society" is the section you've placed the debate.”
  
• I accepted this and have stayed free from any religious content during this argument, although I believe that it is very one-sided to tell your opponent they cannot use a religious morality because it is irrelevant but then use your own religious morality.
  
• Religion has no place in the public circle of ethics. The decision to allow or not allow cloning and genetic engineering should not be decided by a simple book and a couple myths.
  
• Furthermore, PRO has written an entire rebuttal (the longest rebuttal in his R3 argument), about something I had never brought up or mentioned. The only way for him to be able to write a rebuttal about a God argument is for me to write one, as it is fairly unlikely that he would bring it up, but somehow he has written an entire rebuttal about something completely off-topic, and as PRO says in his own words: “Off-topic is not a legitimate argument or rebuttal.”
  
• For these reasons I shall not rebut anything PRO has said in his 5th rebuttal.

SOURCES
[1] https://animals.mom.me/differences-between-human-and-sheep-brains-3500869.html
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3341156/
THE DEBATE HAS CONCLUDED.
VOTE CON.

As agreed, I waive my 4th round.

Mnvarco, a very stimulating debate. Thank you. Let's do this again sometime. hint hint.