ABSTRACT
Let us turn, then, from this general discussion to listen for a moment to the people who now express their disgust about bio-engineering and ask what these objectors are thinking, rather than merely what they are feeling. There are, after all, quite a lot of them, many of them thoughtful people, who have strong views about it. As Jean Bethke Elshtain put it in an article on cloning:
This is an extraordinarily unsettling development…. It was anything but amusing to overhear the speculation that cloning might be made available to parents about to lose a child, or having lost a child to an accident, in order that they might reproduce and replace that lost child. This image borders on obscenity.… The usual nostrums are no use here. I have in mind the standard cliché that, once again, our ethical thinking hasn't caught up with technological ‘advance’. This is a flawed way to reflect on cloning and so much else. The problem is not 155that we must somehow catch up our ethics to our technology. The problem is that technology is rapidly gutting our ethics. And it is our ethics. Ethical reflection belongs to all of us – all those agitated radio callers – and it is the fears and apprehensions of ordinary citizens that should be paid close and respectful attention.1
