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| Author |
Message |
aaron
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My Clone Sleeps Alone
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Mar 9 16:39 UTC 2001 |
An Italian doctor has announced that he is ready to start offering
cloning services to infertile couples, where rather than using a sperm
donor he will clone the father.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Science/2001-03/clone090301.shtml
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| 32 responses total. |
senna
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response 1 of 32:
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Mar 9 17:29 UTC 2001 |
A publicity stunt, obviously. It is unlikely that this is an improvement over
normal fertility practices. It gets your name in the papers, though.
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aaron
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response 2 of 32:
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Mar 9 17:35 UTC 2001 |
Why is that a publicity stunt? The particular doctor has already
established that he will go outside of what might be
considered mainstream medicine, in order to service infertile couples.
And there is no question but that there's a lot of money in it.
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slynne
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response 3 of 32:
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Mar 9 21:02 UTC 2001 |
Would he be willing to clone the mother if that is what the couple
wanted? Leave it to a male doctor to offer to clone the *father* Sheesh.
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mcnally
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response 4 of 32:
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Mar 9 21:30 UTC 2001 |
It is Italy, after all..
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md
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response 5 of 32:
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Mar 9 21:37 UTC 2001 |
If the mother had big tits I bet he'd clone her.
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senna
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response 6 of 32:
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Mar 9 22:07 UTC 2001 |
Precisely my point. It's about the money and prestige, not about improving
fertility chances.
A number of soccer players will probably come up infertile for this guy.
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aaron
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response 7 of 32:
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Mar 9 22:28 UTC 2001 |
Can you imagine if this guy cloned George W? We could elect the idiot
clone of the idiot son of a former President.
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danr
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response 8 of 32:
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Mar 10 13:23 UTC 2001 |
re #5: I thought all Italian women were buxom.
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klg
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response 9 of 32:
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Mar 10 18:48 UTC 2001 |
re 7: "Can you imagine if this guy cloned George W? We could elect the idiot
clone of the idiot son of a former President." You mean as
opposed to electing a divinity school flunk out (i.e., Gore), Sore
Loserman?
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gelinas
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response 10 of 32:
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Mar 10 21:13 UTC 2001 |
(Did he flunk out, or drop out? And which school?)
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gull
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response 11 of 32:
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Mar 10 21:24 UTC 2001 |
He won't know. He's just parroting a Republican party line.
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aaron
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response 12 of 32:
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Mar 11 07:54 UTC 2001 |
In fairness to the Republican Party, I don't recall that it endorsed that
allegation, or others like it.
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keesan
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response 13 of 32:
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Mar 11 17:07 UTC 2001 |
Cloning the mother instead of the father would eliminate Rh incompatibility
problems and maybe other incompatibility problems. IF the couple were to get
divorced, would the clonee automatically get to keep the kid?
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klg
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response 14 of 32:
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Mar 11 19:48 UTC 2001 |
Gore failed 5 of 8 classes he took. I don't recall if it was
Harvard or Yale.
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orinoco
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response 15 of 32:
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Mar 12 00:20 UTC 2001 |
(Re #13: It seems that's an issue even without cloning. There was an article
in today's NY Times about whether men who fail paternity tests should count
as "real" parents in a divorce.)
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gelinas
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response 16 of 32:
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Mar 12 01:49 UTC 2001 |
Any idea which ones?
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aaron
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response 17 of 32:
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Mar 12 02:24 UTC 2001 |
The ones klg just made up, of course.
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keesan
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response 18 of 32:
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Mar 12 03:27 UTC 2001 |
Re 15, I think men who fail these tests do not have to pay child support,
which is why they take these tests. Jim read somewhere that half of the time
that divorcing men insist on the tests being taken, they turn out to be not
the biological father. There are, of course, men who want to raise these
children anyway - are they still given custody or at least visiting
privileges?
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ashke
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response 19 of 32:
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Mar 12 15:55 UTC 2001 |
I like to watch the TV court shows, and while they're more for scandal, they
do have some measure of law in them. If the male is proven to not be the
biological father, they have no legal obligation to have custody or
visitation. The legal assumption is that if the child was born during the
course of the marriage, unless otherwise proved, he is the father. If they
still want visitation, then it's at the discretion of the mother.
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keesan
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response 20 of 32:
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Mar 12 20:42 UTC 2001 |
You seem to be saying that the mother is not legally obligated to allow the
children to spend time with the man they grew up with unless he is obligated
to give money to the mother. This could be hard on the children. In cases
where a man marries a woman with children and legally adopts them, he is
required to pay child support - hopefully he is also legally allowed to spend
time with them after the mother divorces him, but I doubt that he has an equal
chance of gaining custody even though his legal obligations have increased
due to the obligation. There is no law that can cover all situations in
a way that is fair to everyone involved, when the adults or at least one of
them persist in being self-centered. Most adults do seem to care more about
the kids than about hurting the other adult.
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mcnally
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response 21 of 32:
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Mar 12 20:55 UTC 2001 |
re #19: I am not a legal scholar, but I am fairly certain that some
of the statements in #19 are not correct..
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scg
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response 22 of 32:
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Mar 12 21:35 UTC 2001 |
According to the New York Times yesterday, most states still base their child
custody laws on the pre DNA testing assumption that paternity was impossible
to prove conclusively. As such, the "father" they were focusing on, who had
learned several years into "his" kids lives that he wasn't their biological
father, was being required to pay child support because they were born during
his marriage to their mother. The laws of the state he lives in (I forget
which one, but according to the article it's that way for most states) don't
recognize DNA testing as disproving paternity in that situation.
I suppose this really comes down to a definition of parenthood. If biology
is all that matters, it makes no sense. On the other hand, we already
recognize ways of being a parent without being biologically related --
adoption for example. Should it matter legally if somebody turns out not to
be biologically related to somebody they've been raising as their own kid for
years, especially if their relationship with the mother was such that they
had reason to believe they were the biological father?
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aaron
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response 23 of 32:
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Mar 12 22:13 UTC 2001 |
re #20: There's one more twist for some such situations - the doctrine
of "equitable parenthood." That doctrine prevents a wife from disproving
paternity in the context of divorce, to deny access to the person who
the children regarded as their father (and who may have been completely
unaware of his non-paternity). A related concept, equitable estoppel,
may arise if a mother tries to get a court order of paternity set aside,
because she doesn't want the person named as the father to have
continued access to the children.
Adoption puts a parent on equal standing with a biological parent, for
purposes of parenting time or custody.
re #22: I think it would be more correct to say that courts are
reluctant to allow a father to disprove paternity in order to avoid
paying child support, than it is to say that they are not receptive to
DNA evidence of paternity. A father who does not dispute paternity at
the time of divorce is likely to be viewed as having waived that issue,
and thus be unable to initiate a subsequent legal challenge to his
paternity. Most, if not all, states prefer DNA evidence when they hold
paternity hearings, to compel a putative father to support his
illegitimate child.
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ashke
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response 24 of 32:
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Mar 14 05:15 UTC 2001 |
What parts of what I said were wrong?
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