Ethical questions as only my friends could come up with...

[arib]

bluepapercup and I were chatting, and the following dilemma ensued:

Given that bluepapercup needs help taking care of two hypothetical ponies and I live too far away to help her, she's generously offered to clone me. Would my clone be Jewish, and would she be obliged to raise him that way? I mean, somebody's got to muck the stalls on Saturdays.

Here's what we came up with:

According to Orthodox Judaism, a person's status as a Jew is determined by his or her mother. So, who's my clone's mom? Is it my mother, since all of clone-Ari's DNA comes from me? Is it any surrogate mother that might be needed to carry a clone baby to term? Is it the egg donor who gave up an oocyte for us to extract the DNA from to insert my own? What if clone-Ari was grown in a vat? Vats can't be Jewish, they're inanimate!

Your thoughts?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

It doesn't. Being born means emerging alive from the womb. A stillbirth does not get a birth certificate. No religious (or secular authority) readjusts birthdates based on a theoretical "term" birth. Some doctors may use this as a medical milestone, but it is basically meaningless. Especially for premmies who have long term medical complications due to their premature birth.

[arib.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your input, random stranger. :-)

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