Controversial Topic Discussion

Very interesting points, thank you. I can only respond for myself on the religion, I don't know the official stance of the Church on this one. I would believe, faced with this odd circumstance of cloned beings, that yes these individuals have the same soul and rights as everyone else. They were not naturally conceived but they are life now and ALL life is created and loved by God. Therefore, test tube babies and cloned individuals (which unfortunately I agree with you will probably eventually happen just because some scientist can do it...probably not in America, we wouldn't allow it but there are other countries less stringent) would be treated as normal individuals by me at least. And while I do not know the official standing of the Catholic church I do know that we would not ever turn such individuals away.

As for the memories, from a scientific point of view I believe clones would be born similar to test tube babies. A clone would not be immediately full grown but would have to go through all stages of life as usual because it is just the genetic material being used to clone. This has to grow up exactly as a live human in order to become an adult. Therefore I think a clone would have it's own memories and even it's own personality as it would still have different experiences and such while growing up...including those experiences obtained from withstanding some cultural brutality based on it's source of life.

Thanks for your posts!!!