Log
Breaking the Binary
G-dub, State of the Union 2003: Because no human life should be started or ended as an experiment
. It struck me last night during the state of the union speech that Gdub received a standing ovation for his admonition to pass a law banning human cloning.
I’m not really sure what I think about cloning a person. There are many, many ramifications that aren’t entirely obvious, and I’m undecided about the issue. But I’m not sure that writing it off entirely at this early point is a good idea.
There’s a hysteria surrounding the issue that points to a fundamental, underlying tenet of American culture: that gender roles are strictly delimited, that they are “natural,” that anything unnatural threathens the very core of our morality.
Warning: Lacanian theory ahead…
The fundamental conflict with cloning is that it breaks the traditional relationship between men and women. By allowing for asexual reproduction, cloning eliminates the male’s role in reproduction; men are irrelevant, emasculated, castrated.
Is it any surprise that a room full of men (Congress) are overwhelmingly against cloning?
Cloning allows females and males, assuming gestational technology exists, to reproduce without the other. I believe it was Judith Butler who wrote about a (theoretical) gestational machine that would remove the burden of pregnancy from women. Certainly, cloning is a step in this direction.
01/29/03 09:39AM Politics
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