Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, is a futuristic tale about clones. The story focuses on three clones, Tommy, Ruth, and Kathy, with Kathy being the main narrator. In the beginning, the story tells of the three friends time at their special boarding school called Hailsham. This is when the reader discovers that the characters are clones. The clones purpose in life is to donate their organs to "real" people when they become "of age" so to say. As the novel progresses, the reader watches the three clones grow into adults. In this progression, Ruth and Tommy begin to have a relationship. During their time in Hailsham Tommy discovers a temporary way out of their fate of organ donning. He discovers that if you can prove that you are in love, true love, you can get out of donning for a short time. Unfortunately, their lives progress as expected and Ruth and Tommy become donors, while Kathy cares for them. Ruth begins to donate her organs faster than the others and reaches "complete" before the others. "Complete" means that the clone can no longer donate organs to real people. When a clone is complete, they have no other purpose in life and die. When Ruth reaches this point, she shares to Kathy and Tommy that they should fall in love in order to escape the becoming complete. After this Ruth dies and Tommy and Kathy go to find Madame, who will determine if their love is true or not. When they reach Madame they find out that Hailsham really wasn't a school and that it was actually a way to try to prove that clones were more than donors. After this, Tommy basically gives up and is completed, while Kathy begins to donate in order to reach completion.
1. One of the main themes of the novel is based on the morality of cloning. Do you think cloning humans for organ purposes is moral/immoral? why/why not?
2. Another theme is that because clones are not "original" humans, this means the clone possesses no soul. Do you think clones are just copies, or should clones be considered human with their own soul?
14 comments:
1. I do not agree with cloning. I think cloning is immoral in all shapes and forms because no human should be copied. humans are all individuals and life and death is natural. if a proper organ cannot be found, then thats the circle of life. however, if clones were not able to functions as humans and were just dummies (to say the least) then the morality of the situation would change. this all depends of course on the ability to clone humans.
2. in this case, clones do have souls. they feel and are able to love other clones or people. this shows compassion. something that does not have a soul would be unable to show such a strong emotion. the ability to show emotion, makes them human. even though they are technically copies of "real" humans, they do not act like the original or feel the same feelings. this makes them original and shows that their soul is their own. i only believe this if cloning actually occurred and the clones were able to show emotion.
The rate at which technology has grown is unfathomable. This technology that is brought up in this novel can be used to potentially prolong the lives of people who purchase the service. The service I am talking about is owning your own personal clone. Say your at the tender age of 12 and you happen to fall flat on your face during a pick up game of basketball at the local YMCA, a place where you would not rather be because your girlfriend just scored some awesome concert tickets yet your mother really wants you to start exercising more because she feels you are on the border of childhood obesity, and an ambulance must be called because you have congestive heart failure (I chose heart failure in this hypothetical situation because this kid OBVIOUSLY has type 2 diabetes as well as a weak heart). In this situation described above, this child, who is assumed to have a clone, (with a perfectly healthy heart and is not obese) will be able to access his clone, or personal health insurance, (that's the friendly way to call "cloning" - your health insurance plan [it sounds ALOT less derogatory]) and receive a heart transplant. This can be seen in the 2005 movie The Island which calls the clones "insurance policies".
I believe this is completely okay, as long as the person who orders the clone never gets to meet the actual being that will be sacrificed for their wellbeing. This could cause a whole bunch of drama and other emotional occurrences that could damage the entire "insurance policy".
In respnse to alex... i completely agree with you. the way you described using them as insurance is great, but it still does not mean the clone is a copy. yes the genetics are identical but the clone is his or her own person. nice comment.
1). I believe that cloning people in order to use their organs to live forever is extremely immoral. The clones will never be able to have their own lives, yet they're living. Also the only reason they're cloned is to be used for the original person's advantage. Why give someone life if they can't even live it. Everyone gets old and dies eventually. Its part of life. The original person just has to except that.
1) I believe that cloning people in order to use their organs is moral and immoral. A way this could be used to benefit humanity is those who have done wrong to others then that would be their punishment. However if the clone developed a human personality and chose a different path than the original the clone deserves to live.
To answer question one, yes I believe its moral, you are saving lives, that is definitely a moral I hold close and dear.
1. There's no way that cloning for the use of organs is moral. Clones have feelings and relationships, just as regualer humans do. Just because they're not "original" humans does not mean that you can slowly kill them. However, in my opinion, cloning for scientific purposes is moral, as long as there are willing humans do that. I would love to have a clone of myself.
1. Cloning humans for organ purposes is definitely immoral. They are still a conscious, breathing, and fully-functioning human being. It is not right to clone humans for organ purposes. There is no difference between these "farmed" humans and humans to live daily lives. That would be no different than just randomly picking someone and taking their organs and expecting them to live on and continue donating. Although it may be helping someone, it is cruel and unusual.
2. I believe that they should be considered humans with souls. There is really no different biologically between clones and humans. They should be exact replicas, clones.
1. I do not agree with cloning the ACTUAL human. However, I support the idea of being able to clone individual organs from the already deceased. Cloning a human would also be replicating a heart, brain, and emotion. Killing them would be immoral. No question. But using cloned organ from the dead would decrease the death rate of those who are ill looking for a transplant by half, at the minimum.
From a science point of view, I think that cloneing humans for organs is a prefectly acceptable idea. As long as enough tests are done to confirm that the cloned organs don't age faster or present comoplications in the recievers body, I think there couldn't be a better way to save about a million lives waiting on a donor list somewhere right now. However, from the clones point of view, it may seem immoral to create humans in order to tear them apart. I don't think clones could be considered real humans though, and therefore I think it's perfectly acceptable to harvest their organs.
I don't believe that cloning whole humans is morally right for scientific reasons because one would have to murder in order to utilize the organs,however cloning separate organs is okay because no person with feelngs is being harmed.
I believe that cloning people for organs is immoral. It doesn't make sense to create a whole person just to steal their organs when the original person needs them. I don't believe that they are just copies, they have had their own lives and experiences shaping them into people.
1. I believe cloning humans for organ purposes is immoral. At a science perspective I understand the idea of saving someone's life, however I don't think that you should clone someone then kill them for the organ. Clones become people as they experience the world, and killing a person would be immoral.
Graded
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