What is your opinon on Cloning?

[piggypeach]

My mom told me this story about a lady in Florida who cloned her Golden Retriever dog who had already died by taking some DNA. What's your opinion on this? Would you do it to your pet? Would it be the same? Do you think people will start cloning themselves in the future?

[BlakeS5678]

Ew. Justin Bieber. Why piggypeach? Why?!

*Puts on professional face*

I can see how cloning could draw on border on ethics. But, to each their own, as long as it doesn't hurt others. Cloning people would be illegal because, (If I recall correctly) the U.N. has made human testing internationally illegal. The woman that cloned her dog spent well over $100,000 to do so, she must really have wanted that dog. (I could rant about how she must have some problems with "change", but as paksetti would say, that's another can of worms I don't want to open) I don't see how it could really be harming anything, per se, by cloning your dog, (Other than your bank account) So, I don't see how it could become illegal. I'm no lawyer though, I don't know anything about the cloning "process" other than article I found. I personally would never clone my dog, like if I was to marry someone and then they died, even though I would miss them dearly I wouldn't clone my spouse. But, again, this is about cloning animals, not dead spouses. So, another can of worms.

[Rawra]

Ew. Justin Bieber. Why piggypeach? Why?!


My thoughts exactly.

Oh, I dunno, I would clone myself to double the awesomeness. Also, Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp, so that my awesomeness would have a bit (more) of fun.

[crocobaura]

Wouldn't frequent cloning overpopulate the gene pool with the same genetic material and then people would have to be aware as not to have children with people who are their genetic relative? Anyway, I wouldn't clone anyone, regardless of how much I'd miss them, as it would be just a look-alike, kind of like twins, who have different personalities in spite of their similar looks and upbringing.

[maxon]

I read that story too a while back. I can't understand really why she did it. It seems an odd thing to do. After all, it's not the same animal. I love all my dogs, past and present but I wouldn't clone any of them despite missing them when they go. I mean it might look like James but it wouldn't BE him and it's him I love. mmmm,

[annoainthere]

No I could never clone something I love, as a clone can't be proven to have the same thoughts/personality (well can't be proven yet but it is a probable assumption). So I wouldn't want to clone, as knowing my luck, I would end up with a pet opposite in personality to the one I had originally and I just couldn't do that. I love my kitties I've had and have just the way they were/are. Sure I feel sorrow for the ones who have passed, but in their time I know I gave them the best quality of life and a happy home - to me that is what matters most.

[paksetti]

I don't know why she couldn't just go out and get a similar looking dog. That's really all she's accomplishing with a dog clone. Plus, if she looked at resuces or something, she'd be able to pick a puppy based on personality as well as looks.

meh. it's her money, I guess.

[jthm_nny]

I've always wanted to solve world's medical problems with a cloned human model but not actually a living being. More like a collection of cloned organs connected together in a machine like a body to use for experiments with medical treatments since I'm strongly against animal testing AND animal CLONE testing. Actually bringing a whole body to life by cloning and then experimenting on it is exactly the same as experimenting on any living being. I guess the machine type of cloned organ model is the only loophole that I know of that can get past this.

[~Dee~]

That money would have been better spent giving it to a dog shelter, there are so many poor dogs in need of a home, what their did is a bit selfish but it's their money.
I hope their realize they have a totally different dog what looks like the dead one but will have a different temperament and don't know them from a bar of soap.

You can never recreate the pet you have lost, he might look the same but he is not.

[piggypeach]

I understand that the money was really not spent well. I had meant to ask whether you thought, if you completely ignore the tremendous cost, would you do it?

Also, I don't really understand why some of you are saying that it wouldn't have the same personality. It has the exact same DNA. It would be pretty darn close. Of course a lot of the personality and temperament comes from experiences that the dog has had, but a large chunk is straight from the DNA.

(Blake and Creeper... Yes. I'm a Belieber. Get over yourselves. And admit it, he's cute ;))

[SimMegaptera]

Pet cloning is pointless, and possibly a fraud depending on what the company claims you'll get. It won't be the reincarnation of your dead pet. A clone is basically a twin. You've taken some genetic material from an adult animal and grown it into a new one. With identical twins, that split happens in the womb when the original embryo is very small, and it may split into two equal-sized cell globs rather than one big one and one small one. But the end result is the same: you have two individuals where there was one before.

Cloning your dog won't bring your dog back to life. You'll get a puppy with the same genetic makeup, so it'll roughly have the same size, coat colour, facial features, and so on. (And even as I wrote that, I realized that it won't all be identical. Size and shape can be determined by living conditions and exercise. Facial features can be developed through expression and emotion -- even identical twins can look different enough because of that. Coat patterns -- the forehead spot, the white toes, the tail tip -- are determined by random cell development before birth, like fingerprints, and are also not genetically coded.) But its mind will be that of a new individual. There's no reason why it would have your old dog's memories or mind or personality, any more than twins can read each other's minds. In fact, unless you raised the original dog from a puppy itself, chances are the clone's upbringing will be different from the original's and therefore it'll have a different personality altogether.

I loved my cats, but why would I give money to an unethical company to get copies of them while there are homeless animals being put to sleep in shelters? The best memorial to your pet might be to give a home to another animal.

[piggypeach]

Seems like this is turning into a one-sided argument; Does anybody here even support cloning animals? Seems like nobody does. Well... okay then. Continue debating. But not against each other, since everybody agrees with each other. So just... keep posting stuff, I guess.


Swaggie.

[paksetti]

srsly d00d, bieber is totes gheeeeeeyyyyyyyy XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDlolololololololololol








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*~*~*~*~*~*If vEgEtArIaNs EaT VeGeTabLeS, WhAt Do HuMaNiTaRiAnS EaT?!?!????!????*~*~*~*~*~*~*

[piggypeach]

Hey! Avatar copyer!






(mine is better, just saying)

[HarVee]

Justin Bieber seriously needs to hit puberty already.

[piggypeach]

Lol, I love where this conversation is going.

He did, and that's why he can't sing high anymore. You should take a look at his latest songs, they are a lot deeper.

Wait, I'll save you the trouble, and say it for you: "Ew, why would I listen to Bieber?"

[Mistermook]

I don't have a problem with people cloning pets. I don't really understand why they'd do that, and I'm quite certain that many of the nonphysical traits won't be tied to the genes, but I really don't see to what end it's a "bad" thing as much as slightly weird thing. On the other hand, I completely support cloning technology for other uses such as: sustaining endangered and at risk species, agriculture and animal husbandry, and medical purposes such as cloning your liver so you don't have to risk cutting one out of your neighbor while he's sleeping. As for the personal issue of cloning my own pets.. well, maybe when I used to have fish, because breeding fish was always a pain in the butt anyways so why not complicate it even further with cloning?

[SimMegaptera]

@MisterMook -- I love that one, cloning organs for transplant. As long as the reason the original organ went bad isn't genetic (or didn't manifest until later life), a person's own cells could be used to clone them a new liver or a new lung or something. No problems with rejection. I wonder how long it would take to grow an adult human liver in the lab.

[Petchy]

On the flip side, I really don't like the idea of cloning organs etc. for transplant. I feel that sometimes, your body just has a stop-clock in it. Ok, sometimes weird shit happens, and yeah you might need something donated, but the idea of regrowing an arm, a liver, a head, whatever, because it got burned off, you drank too much or you looked into the end of the aperture science hand-held portal device weirds me out for some reason. Maybe it's because I watched "The Island" or maybe it's because I feel that there is an overarching game plan that shouldn't be messed with too much or something else.

[RoseCity]

I think using technology to grow an organ from a person's own cells would be much preferable to donation - besides the fact that it solves the rejection issue, organs have to be harvested from people whose hearts are still beating.

[BlakeS5678]

@ You know who you are: Thanks for taking this from cloning to Justin Bieber. (Debate thread has officially lost all hope) I hope you two are proud of yourselves. And, no, neither I, nor "The Creeper" find Justin Bieber cute, valid, or socially acceptable, much least attractive. And, that's coming from BISEXUALS. (I thought I'd add that in there to make my point more valid)

(Blake and Creeper... Yes. I'm a Belieber. Get over yourselves. And admit it, he's cute ;))

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/hh528/BlakeS5678/No-1.jpg

[Rawra]

^Couldn't agree more. :lol:

[paksetti]

Oh, poo. The internet has such a hate boner for Justin Bieber. Personally, I can't stand his music, but at this point it just seems obligatory to insult him. He's just another shitty teenybopper, y'all, he ain't special.

Ooh, wait. I said something coherent. That's not supposed to happen with this avatar.


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~*~SHUT can’t go UP only prices do~*~
~~ItS nOt wHo YoU MaRRy~
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~~**~~2 cute 2 tak 2 u~~**~~
-*- I'm already cr@zy, nôw I'm jܧt putting ìt to gÖÖd use! -*-
once a pLayAh, alwAys a pLayAh

[TheSimaniac]

I think that the main ethical issues with cloning stem from its use. A lot of the time there doesn't seem to be very much point to cloning and when there is a purpose it's very often unethical. Cloning someone to use their organs has a huge potential to be considered immoral, but cloning someone and using the resulting egg to generate stem cells has the same ethical problems as abortion (not that I'm claiming there necessarily are any, that's not really a debate for right now - regardless, it's pretty much irrelevant since it's becoming increasingly possible to generate tissue and organs from an adult's own cells). Besides medical issues like this I simply don't see much point to generating a clone. Identical twins are as genetically similar as clones (moreso, in fact) but that doesn't make them the same person. I don't see much of a problem with cloning a pet, but a clone of a human will probably be very different to the original and so the idea of recreating the person is not only littered with moral problems but ultimately futile.

I don't see any issue with cloning in itself. It's the fact that I'm unaware of any usage without serious ethical dilemmas which I think is the problem.


On the flip side, I really don't like the idea of cloning organs etc. for transplant. I feel that sometimes, your body just has a stop-clock in it. Ok, sometimes weird shit happens, and yeah you might need something donated, but the idea of regrowing an arm, a liver, a head, whatever, because it got burned off, you drank too much or you looked into the end of the aperture science hand-held portal device weirds me out for some reason. Maybe it's because I watched "The Island" or maybe it's because I feel that there is an overarching game plan that shouldn't be messed with too much or something else.
Just to clarify, do you mean you wouldn't want to use it or do you mean that you wouldn't want it to happen at all?

[BlakeS5678]

^Couldn't agree more. :lol:

At least someone still has taste in music. I guess the simpletons (I've been waiting all week to say simpletons) will destroy themselves. As a genius once said;

"The stupid ones are always the most violent"- SpongeBob SquarePants

Can someone please bring this back on topic, I've had enough Justin Bieber to terrorize me for a month in this thread alone.

@Paksetti. *Sigh* (Enough said.)

[iCad]

Oh, come on, people. There's always a "cute/pretty kid" in music. For a long while, it was Michael Jackson. (As in, when the Jackson 5 was big and he was a cute little kid with a beautiful not-false falsetto. :) Ah, the good old days... *sigh*) So, there will always be a Bieber. When the current one (finally) grows up, there'll be another with a different name and a different (but still pretty) face. I agree that Bieber's cute, but I say that in a "mommy" way. As in, I want to feed him and make sure he takes his vitamins and gets enough sleep and dates only nice girls and all that stuff. I have very different qualifications for someone I'd want to sleep with. For one, they have to be able to grow facial hair on a regular, non-patchy basis. :lol:

ANYWAY, on to the real subject. Cloning has good possibilities, not so much in terms of cloning entire animals/people, as that's kind of pointless because the clone would never be the same as the original. But cloning PARTS of creatures would be a very good thing. Say that you're cruising along in life, having a good time, and suddenly your heart decides to go, "I'm outta here!" because it's tired of the crap you eat that's made it so that its blood vessels are more jammed than a major highway at rush hour in an overcrowded urban area. Well, with proper technology, your own heart could be cloned. Just your heart, not all of you. Unlike a donated heart, it'd be a perfect genetic match for you, so no problems with rejection and such. Boom. Problem solved.

Or a different application: You know how all those people yell about eating meat being murder because you have to kill an animal to get your meat? Well, that wouldn't be an issue if we could clone meat. Just meat, not the whole animal. It's just muscle tissue, after all. (Or occasionally organs if you're into eating liver or brain or what-have-you.) Shouldn't be hard to make once the bugs get worked out of cloning. Not only would it possibly make people feel better about their eating habits because they wouldn't be "murdering" anything, but not keeping/raising entire heads of cattle/pigs/chickens/whatever for meat would take strain off the land and result in less greenhouse-gas emissions. (Cattle fart, kids. And they fart A LOT because much of what they eat can't be digested so it just sits in their digestive tracts and ferments. And their farts are pretty much pure methane, which is a major -- but entirely natural -- contributor to global warming.)

So yeah, I think cloning's all good, but like I've said, I really don't think there's much point in cloning entire people/animals. Just their parts for "spare parts" or for food or what-have-you. AFAIK, the technology isn't that selective yet, though. (Although I admit I haven't been keeping up. :) ) It's still kind of an all-or-nothing deal. But I'm sure that will change as knowledge/technology advances.

[piggypeach]

- I was kidding, I'm not a belieber. Really. I only like one song by him, Boyfriend. My avatar is the album cover for that song.
- Yes I agree that all his other songs are bs.
- He used to look like a baby with a big head, but now that he's 18, he's cute, at least to me. I'm not forcing anyone else to think that and it was a joke when I said "admit it, he's cute".
- Now, are we done with bieber and ready to debate about cloning again? This conversation's gone from bad to worse.

[BlakeS5678]

- I was kidding, I'm not a belieber. Really. I only like one song by him, Boyfriend. My avatar is the album cover for that song.
- Yes I agree that all his other songs are bs.
- He used to look like a baby with a big head, but now that he's 18, he's cute, at least to me. I'm not forcing anyone else to think that and it was a joke when I said "admit it, he's cute".
- Now, are we done with bieber and ready to debate about cloning again? This conversation's gone from bad to worse.

Excuses. Excuses. *Tsk* *Tsk* *Tsk*

The original conversation shall now continue. I wouldn't want to cause anymore trouble.

@iCad; Well stated. Thank you.

[piggypeach]

Excuses. Excuses. *Tsk* *Tsk* *Tsk*

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQueNTZfHlZUM6DcjjaEkjAUCcoC9xjETKv9Jl01UgK6aXk09D-7A

[BlakeS5678]

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQueNTZfHlZUM6DcjjaEkjAUCcoC9xjETKv9Jl01UgK6aXk09D-7A

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/hh528/BlakeS5678/Untitled-1.jpg

[piggypeach]

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/14761142.jpg

[BlakeS5678]

http://i1250.photobucket.com/albums/hh528/BlakeS5678/Anothermeme.jpg

[simtastic2]

On the cloning issue it most likely would have the SAME personality since it is a CLONE of the dog.

[TheSimaniac]

On the cloning issue it most likely would have the SAME personality since it is a CLONE of the dog.
A clone just means it has the same DNA. Genetics influences personality, but it certainly isn't the only determining factor. Identical twins are generally very different people despite having the same DNA, and these are people brought up in the same household by the same people. That probably wouldn't be true for most clones.

[EliDawn]

I remembering hearing that the clone of Dolly the sheep had lived only half as long as the original, so unless they've found a way to change the life length I don't see a reason to make any clones of pets. It would mostly mean losing the same pet all over again sooner than expected.

And because of different experiences, the animal's personality wouldn't be the same.

[Mistermook]

That was the first instance of a new, untested tech. That's like suggesting no one fly, because the Wright brothers made crappy planes.

[SuicidiaParasidia]

i think the bigger question might be "at what point do we stop being valued individuals and start being, in essence, a brand of code that can be replicated and applied at will?".

what the crap ever happened to just learning to let go?

[Mistermook]

i think the bigger question might be "at what point do we stop being valued individuals and start being, in essence, a brand of code that can be replicated and applied at will?".

what the crap ever happened to just learning to let go?
You can let go if you like. Personally, I think it's really easy to die. Living's hard, and if given the opportunity to grab life with both hands and hold onto it by any means necessary I'd find myself utterly contemptible if I didn't. If someone else wants to give up, that's fine. Just don't stand in the way of those of us who would fight for every last breath the world has to offer us.

[piggypeach]

Wow. That's deep, man.

[jthm_nny]

Am I the only one who thinks Justin Bieber would look perfect with long anime pigtails if he was a girl. Hell, he could get away with it as a dude. I'll only be a fan of him if he got anime pigtails.

[frankokomando]

If I could clone myself I would totally make an army of myself and take over the world. :)

[~Dee~]

You can let go if you like. Personally, I think it's really easy to die. Living's hard, and if given the opportunity to grab life with both hands and hold onto it by any means necessary I'd find myself utterly contemptible if I didn't. If someone else wants to give up, that's fine. Just don't stand in the way of those of us who would fight for every last breath the world has to offer us.

The way I read SuicidiaParasidia post is for pet owners to let go of their pets ... not people.

But if you are referring to people I have to agree, death comes quickly enough, I would hang on to life as long as I could.

[SuicidiaParasidia]

my post was referring to both pets and people. both are lives, both can hold the same level of importance to a person, depending on their experiences.

You can let go if you like. Personally, I think it's really easy to die. Living's hard, and if given the opportunity to grab life with both hands and hold onto it by any means necessary I'd find myself utterly contemptible if I didn't. If someone else wants to give up, that's fine. Just don't stand in the way of those of us who would fight for every last breath the world has to offer us.

youre entitled to your opinion, but i have yet to see anyone grow into a better person if theyve never had to cope with change. while youre at it, how about, once youre in a relationship, you cant break up with the other person, because that would be just too much heartbreak for some of us to handle.
death is as much a fact of life as life is. and if you, the living, are going to be cloning other people/pets, they should be allowed to die gracefully if thats what they want, despite your inability to grasp, or cope with, death. assuming that someone who is cloned, isnt the one deciding to be cloned, of course.

id say the opposite is true. if dying were so easy, why would anyone rail so hard against accepting it...?

i dont have ANY problem with cloning, as long as the person or pet being cloned actually wants it done to them. i do, however, have a problem with folks deciding that because their feelings are just too precious to endure being hurt, its A-OK to meddle with another persons course of existence. if someone has a problem with their loved one dying, but that loved one didnt explicitly say in any form that they would like to be cloned--i say, learn to let go. life goes on.
my question is simply: at what point does all this become a ridiculous grab at immortality for the rich?*
...though also, wouldnt it simply be better if we focused on lengthening the longevity of our race, rather than try to dodge death when it comes? fixing the screwy chemicals in our food could be a first step. living at a less insane pace could be another. just, yknow, a thought.

*because, lets face it, none of us poor folk would be seeing an ounce of that cloning formula. ahhh, greed. its what drives the food industry to put wood chips in our edibles so they can still say "all-natural" on the package and save money on actual ingredients.

[Volvenom]

Ethical or nonethical. If the point is to get your perfect companion back you would be disappointed. Animals and humans consists of environmental and genetical components. Only the genetical components can be cloned. So it would really be someone else.

On the other hand if you made yourself a perfect animal to make a new sort of peacocks out of, then you might lose a lot of money if that animal suddenly died on you. So then it would make perfect sense :bunny:

[TheSimaniac]

Cloning someone isn't resurrecting them. It's simply creating an entirely different and separate person with the same DNA. It's no more recreating the person than getting someone else and restyling their hair in the same fashion recreates them, or dressing them in the same clothes. It's simply a different person who has something in common, in this their DNA (excluding mutations and mitochondrial DNA), with the original.

[Shoosh Malooka]

Never mind. I was wrong to post this without thinking clearly.

[Myshia]

No, honestly just no.
You get no genetic variation, you can't breed again & you don't get the same personalities and memories to come through - those have to be re-taught in the case of the dog. Also with cloning, you get a certain age not a baby who has just started life.
But i honestly don't understand why you would do it for animals. I mean sure you miss the animal but you know just like everyone else things happen that are out of your control. We all have to leave the world someday, y'know. And since there are some pretty bad diseases out there that are becoming non-treatable, i'm sure you don't want to clone yourself. You want to have some genetic variation - i mean people want to be original not robots. ;)
For plants, however, its a completely different issue cause its been practised for thousands of years and we still do it today.

[BlakeS5678]

Am I the only one who thinks Justin Bieber would look perfect with long anime pigtails if he was a girl. Hell, he could get away with it as a dude. I'll only be a fan of him if he got anime pigtails.

They should put a quote of that in the dictionary underneath "irrelevant".

On topic; Cloning COULD be an excellent form of testing. Put in a controlled environment we could test how much are genetics affect us in the ratio of environmental change. It's something I've been pondering for years, and I'm sure scientists have been too. Now of course, this isn't a holocaust where we create people, animals even, and lock them up so that we could apply tests. Which quite honestly, ethics and society is stopping scientists from doing. Could we do this? Absolutely. Would we? Possibly. Should we? Absolutely not. I personally, find "For science!" a bogus excuse. They say we would be much less technologically advanced if we didn't have slaves, but is that the type of world we want to live in? The goal of every human, (In general) is to be fully, genuinely, happy. But, that doesn't mean having every piece of technology that could ever exist will do that for us. And, I could imagine life feeling a "little" bland if we never have to do anything, having every language we could ever learn installed in our mind, having a robot cook, clean, etc. for us, I just can't see why people would even want that, people would lose value. Like money, if a country produces a lot more of their currency than the worth of their currency decreases. The same way if we keep on creating clones and losing our value as a person, so much for everyone being "crafted uniquely" "special" "irreplaceable" "like nobody else". We should be humans not dolls that can be popped out of a cloning factory.

[Volvenom]

Also with cloning, you get a certain age not a baby who has just started life.

Really? I would have thought they still needed to get through the hole natural creation process, from cells. That's what they copy isn't it ... cells?

[kitty40089]

Oh, come on, people. There's always a "cute/pretty kid" in music. For a long while, it was Michael Jackson. (As in, when the Jackson 5 was big and he was a cute little kid with a beautiful not-false falsetto. :) Ah, the good old days... *sigh*) So, there will always be a Bieber. When the current one (finally) grows up, there'll be another with a different name and a different (but still pretty) face. I agree that Bieber's cute, but I say that in a "mommy" way. As in, I want to feed him and make sure he takes his vitamins and gets enough sleep and dates only nice girls and all that stuff. I have very different qualifications for someone I'd want to sleep with. For one, they have to be able to grow facial hair on a regular, non-patchy basis. :lol:

ANYWAY, on to the real subject. Cloning has good possibilities, not so much in terms of cloning entire animals/people, as that's kind of pointless because the clone would never be the same as the original. But cloning PARTS of creatures would be a very good thing. Say that you're cruising along in life, having a good time, and suddenly your heart decides to go, "I'm outta here!" because it's tired of the crap you eat that's made it so that its blood vessels are more jammed than a major highway at rush hour in an overcrowded urban area. Well, with proper technology, your own heart could be cloned. Just your heart, not all of you. Unlike a donated heart, it'd be a perfect genetic match for you, so no problems with rejection and such. Boom. Problem solved.

Or a different application: You know how all those people yell about eating meat being murder because you have to kill an animal to get your meat? Well, that wouldn't be an issue if we could clone meat. Just meat, not the whole animal. It's just muscle tissue, after all. (Or occasionally organs if you're into eating liver or brain or what-have-you.) Shouldn't be hard to make once the bugs get worked out of cloning. Not only would it possibly make people feel better about their eating habits because they wouldn't be "murdering" anything, but not keeping/raising entire heads of cattle/pigs/chickens/whatever for meat would take strain off the land and result in less greenhouse-gas emissions. (Cattle fart, kids. And they fart A LOT because much of what they eat can't be digested so it just sits in their digestive tracts and ferments. And their farts are pretty much pure methane, which is a major -- but entirely natural -- contributor to global warming.)

So yeah, I think cloning's all good, but like I've said, I really don't think there's much point in cloning entire people/animals. Just their parts for "spare parts" or for food or what-have-you. AFAIK, the technology isn't that selective yet, though. (Although I admit I haven't been keeping up. :) ) It's still kind of an all-or-nothing deal. But I'm sure that will change as knowledge/technology advances.

I think that sounds amazing it ould olve illions of problems, including world hunger.

[Mootilda]

Also with cloning, you get a certain age not a baby who has just started life.You've been watching too much sci-fi. In fact, a cloned animal goes through the exact same life stages, including gestation and birth, as a normal animal. You start with a cell, not a fully-formed adult.

In sci-fi, they are impatient, so they pretend that clones come fully-formed from vats of goo. Then again, they also pretend that memories are stored in DNA and can be cloned.

So yeah, I think cloning's all good, but like I've said, I really don't think there's much point in cloning entire people/animals. Just their parts for "spare parts" or for food or what-have-you. AFAIK, the technology isn't that selective yet, though. (Although I admit I haven't been keeping up. :) ) It's still kind of an all-or-nothing deal. But I'm sure that will change as knowledge/technology advances.They have been able to grow specific organs from stem cells. However, it's not cheap.