An activist group has been organized in California to ban pet cloning. Henry Miller comments on TCS:
The improbably named Jennifer Fearing recently penned a tirade against animal cloning. The rant was stimulated by the announcement from South Korean scientists of the first cloned dog, an adorable puppy called Snuppy who is genetically identical to a sweet Afghan hound named Tai. Mistrusting scientific progress that uses animals, Fearing finds the development dark and unsettling.
Ms. Fearful er, Fearing knows that her moral suasion will not prevail, so she and other members of something called Californians Against Pet Cloning are pushing for legislation “to ban the retail sale of cloned and genetically modified pets.” Beyond being paternalistic and misguided, such a stricture is preposterous. All of the more than 150 recognized dog breeds are derived from a wolf-like ancestor. Picture standing side-by-side a timber wolf, a Chihuahua, and a Great Dane, and tell me that’s not genetic modification at work.
The almost supersititous stigma that surrounds cloning of any sort is going to be a tough obstacle to overcome, but I can think of one thing that might do it — the affection that pet owners have for their little friends. Ultimately, I expect that both pet cloning and pet cryonics will be huge industries.
