Answer me this – April 18, 2024

Ursula Le Guin wrote about this in several of her science fiction books. It always gave me the creeps and I stopped reading her books because they creeped me out.

Is it ethical to grow fully formed, brainless clones for harvesting organs?

My answer to this? Absolutely NO. No way. It’s too creepy. And probably unethical in every possible way.

Best we spend our time trying to create artificial organs that work. I’m sure we’ll get there. Treatments that don’t require removal and replacement of organs would also be a great idea. The whole “spare parts” business is a bit wacky. As lives get extended, we’ll always need at least some replacement parts, but the idea of growing brainless clones for ANY reason makes me queasy.

I have four, no five replacement parts and mostly, they work.Only one of them is from an animal — I’m told a cow.

We’ve come a long way in designing bone and breast implants, hearing implants, pacemakers (an extra rather than a replacement) and are working on a mechanical heart. I think I heard, mechanical kidneys too. So far the heart hasn’t worked well enough. There have been a number of trials, but none of the recipients lasted more than a few weeks. Of course they only give them to people who are desperately ill and would have died anyway, so it’s hard to gauge how well they worked. I’m sure they will get there eventually.

Meanwhile, I hope we come up with treatments to save our originals and get them working again. Everything else is both creepy and savage.

Categories: #Health, #Medicare, Anecdote, Daily Prompt, Sci Fi - Fantasy - Time Travel, Science

Tags: #ANSWER ME THIS, Body parts, Clones, Daily prompt, Marilyn Armstrong