What would happen if one DID manage human cloning?

[imzjustplayin]

If there was this one guy who managed to clone himself like 10 times, what would happen? Would the government assign them as different people? Would the government try to kill the guys? What do you think would happen?

[GasSavers_maximilian]

Originally Posted by *************

Would the government try to kill the guys?

Have you been watching The Boys From Brazil?

I think they'd be handled like identical twins are now. No biggie, unless it was still illegal in which case the guy'd be arrested. Why on earth would they be killed? Even if the process were still imperfect and they had health problems, it's not like we don't have plenty of kids with health difficulties (although that would be a very good reason for cloning to be restricted).

[GasSavers_Erik]

The first step would be to create an embryo, so it would have to be inserted into/carried to term by a woman and birthed in a hospital.

The hospital would give it a birth certificate and no one would know that it was a clone until it got old enough for some people to notice that the child looked remarkably like the man when he was a child- then they could confirm with a DNA test.

There could be some differences between the clone and the guy- like personality and even some divergence in physical traits as the clone aged. Also to be considered is that the clone would have gotten a little DNA from its the egg that was used to create it.

I think the government would maybe put the guy in jail, because there are rules against it. Otherwise a clone is a living person and would be protected as such- the same way that "natural" clones (identical twins) both have full rights.

The saddest part is that if human cloning works like animal cloning, the child would likely die early (remember how they had to put down Dolly because of premature aging).

[GasSavers_maximilian]

There are theoretical ways around the telomere length problem that causes the aging issues. It being only a single cell should make it easier to solve, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Ever seen video of the microsurgery techniques used to implant the cell in the egg? Quite primitive and violent! I'm not surprised success rates are so low.

The This American Life TV show had an interesting piece on a cloned bull and the temperamental differences from the original (he had been extremely gentle). Season one, but I forget which episode. Netflix has it on their streaming service, FYI.