Example:

No fetus has a right to sustain its life, maintain, or prolong them at his mother's expense (no matter how minimal and insignificant sacrifice required of her is). Still, if she signed a contract with fetus - by knowingly and willingly and intentionally conceiving it - such a right has crystallized and has created corresponding duties and obligations of mother towards her fetus.

On other hand, everyone has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or prolong them at SOCIETY's expense (no matter how major and significant resources required are). Still, if a contract has been signed - implicitly or explicitly - between parties, then abrogation of such a right may crystallize in contract and create corresponding duties and obligations, moral, as well as legal.

Example:

Everyone has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or prolong them at society's expense. Public hospitals, state pension schemes, and police forces may be required to fulfill society's obligations - but fulfill them it must, no matter how major and significant resources are. Still, if a person volunteered to join army and a contract has been signed between parties, then this right has been thus abrogated and individual assumed certain duties and obligations, including duty or obligation to give up his or her life to society.

ID. The Right not to be Killed

Every person has right not to be killed unjustly. What constitutes "just killing" is a matter for an ethical calculus in framework of a social contract.

But does A's right not to be killed include right against third parties that they refrain from enforcing rights of other people against A? Does A's right not to be killed preclude righting of wrongs committed by A against others - even if righting of such wrongs means killing of A?

Not so. There is a moral obligation to right wrongs (to restore rights of other people). If A maintains or prolongs his life ONLY by violating rights of others and these other people object to it - then A must be killed if that is only way to right wrong and re-assert their rights.

This is doubly true if A's existence is, at best, debatable. An egg does not a human being make. Removal of nucleus is an important step in life-saving research. An unfertilized egg has no rights at all.

IE. The Right to Have One's Life Saved

There is no such right as there is no corresponding moral obligation or duty to save a life. This "right" is a demonstration of aforementioned muddle between morally commendable, desirable and decent ("ought", "should") and morally obligatory, result of other people's rights ("must").

In some countries, obligation to save life is legally codified. But while law of land may create a LEGAL right and corresponding LEGAL obligations - it does not always or necessarily create a moral or an ethical right and corresponding moral duties and obligations.

IF. The Right to Save One's Own Life

The right to self-defence is a subset of more general and all-pervasive right to save one's own life. One has right to take certain actions or avoid taking certain actions in order to save his or her own life.

It is generally accepted that one has right to kill a pursuer who knowingly and intentionally intends to take one's life. It is debatable, though, whether one has right to kill an innocent person who unknowingly and unintentionally threatens to take one's life.

IG. The Right to Terminate One's Life

See "The Murder of Oneself".

IH. The Right to Have One's Life Terminated

The right to euthanasia, to have one's life terminated at will, is restricted by numerous social, ethical, and legal rules, principles, and considerations. In a nutshell - in many countries in West one is thought to has a right to have one's life terminated with help of third parties if one is going to die shortly anyway and if one is going to be tormented and humiliated by great and debilitating agony for rest of one's remaining life if not helped to die. Of course, for one's wish to be helped to die to be accommodated, one has to be in sound mind and to will one's death knowingly, intentionally, and forcefully.

Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, and eBookWeb , a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory Bellaonline, and Suite101 .

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com

Why Should Baby Cloning be Illegal?

Cloning's opponents object to procreative cloning because it can be abused to design babies, skew natural selection, unbalance nature, produce masters and slaves and so on. The "argument from abuse" has been raised with every scientific advance - from in vitro fertilization to space travel.

Every technology can be potentially abused. Television can be either a wonderful educational tool - or an addictive and mind numbing pastime. Nuclear fission is a process that yields both nuclear weapons and atomic energy. To claim, as many do, that cloning touches upon "heart" of our existence, "kernel" of our being, very "essence" of our nature - and thus threatens life itself - would be incorrect.

There is no "privileged" form of technological abuse and no hierarchy of potentially abusive technologies. Nuclear fission tackles natural processes as fundamental as life. Nuclear weapons threaten life no less than cloning. The potential for abuse is not a sufficient reason to arrest scientific research and progress - though it is a necessary condition.

Some fear that cloning will further government's enmeshment in healthcare system and in scientific research. Power corrupts and it is not inconceivable that governments will ultimately abuse and misuse cloning and other biotechnologies. Nazi Germany had a state-sponsored and state-mandated eugenics program in 1930's.

Yet, this is another variant of argument from abuse. That a technology can be abused by governments does not imply that it should be avoided or remain undeveloped. This is because all technologies - without a single exception - can and are abused routinely - by governments and others. This is human nature.

Fukuyama raised possibility of a multi-tiered humanity in which "natural" and "genetically modified" people enjoy different rights and privileges. But why is this inevitable? Surely this can easily by tackled by proper, prophylactic, legislation?

All humans, regardless of their pre-natal history, should be treated equally. Are children currently conceived in vitro treated any differently to children conceived in utero? They are not. There is no reason that cloned or genetically-modified children should belong to distinct legal classes.

Unbalancing Nature

It is very anthropocentric to argue that proliferation of genetically enhanced or genetically selected children will somehow unbalance nature and destabilize precarious equilibrium it maintains. After all, humans have been modifying, enhancing, and eliminating hundreds of thousands of species for well over 10,000 years now. Genetic modification and bio-engineering are as natural as agriculture. Human beings are a part of nature and its manifestation. By definition, everything they do is natural.

Why would genetic alteration or enhancement of one more species - homo sapiens - be of any consequence? In what way are humans "more important" to nature, or "more crucial" to its proper functioning? In our short history on this planet, we have genetically modified and enhanced wheat and rice, dogs and cows, tulips and orchids, oranges and potatoes. Why would interfering with genetic legacy of human species be any different?

Effects on Society

Cloning - like Internet, television, car, electricity, telegraph, and wheel before it - is bound to have great social consequences. It may foster "embryo industries". It may lead to exploitation of women - either willingly ("egg prostitution") or unwillingly ("womb slavery"). Charles Krauthammer, a columnist and psychiatrist, quoted in "The Economist", says:

"(Cloning) means routinisation, commercialisation, commodification of human embryo."

Exploiting anyone unwillingly is a crime, whether it involves cloning or white slavery. But why would egg donations and surrogate motherhood be considered problems? If we accept that life begins at moment of fertilization and that a woman owns her body and everything within it - why should she not be allowed to sell her eggs or to host another's baby and how would these voluntary acts be morally repugnant? In any case, human eggs are already being bought and sold and supply far exceeds demand.

Moreover, full-fledged humans are routinely "routinised, commercialized, and commodified" by governments, corporations, religions, and other social institutions. Consider war, for instance - or commercial advertising. How is "routinisation, commercialization, and commodification" of embryos more reprehensible that "routinisation, commercialization, and commodification" of fully formed human beings?

Curing and Saving Life

Cell therapy based on stem cells often leads to tissue rejection and necessitates costly and potentially dangerous immunosuppressive therapy. But when stem cells are harvested from patient himself and cloned, these problems are averted. Therapeutic cloning has vast untapped - though at this stage still remote - potential to improve lives of hundreds of millions.

As far as "designer babies" go, pre-natal cloning and genetic engineering can be used to prevent disease or cure it, to suppress unwanted traits, and to enhance desired ones. It is moral right of a parent to make sure that his progeny suffers less, enjoys life more, and attains maximal level of welfare throughout his or her life.

That such technologies can be abused by over-zealous, or mentally unhealthy parents in collaboration with avaricious or unscrupulous doctors - should not prevent vast majority of stable, caring, and sane parents from gaining access to them.

Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, and eBookWeb , a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory Bellaonline, and Suite101 .

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com