Cloning/Stem Cells and the Meaning of Life

Abstract

This article explores recent controversies over human cloning, stem cell research and the potential applications of both. Much of the fear of human reproductive cloning has been escalated by media calling on scare stories from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil, which both stimulates public fear and clouds debate. Is it possible to take a detached view about whether the risks are worth taking? While technologies now offer new dilemmas and possibilities, this article moves beyond the current impasse between technically optimistic market individualism and traditional (often religious) forms of moral collectivism. This critical theory and the concept of alienation offer useful points of departure, in addressing the body as site of both social anxiety and of nature-social boundary disputes.