Medical ethics...

I was having one of those interesting conversations with a friend in the library today. We talked about cloning and the discussion of euthanasia that was discussed in phil class. By the way, did anyone read the article in The Star about that abortion policy? I didn't know that they killed babies that way. They say that doctors would pierce something sharp into the babies head when it is born and that some healthy women would do this when they were six months pregnant. 6 months! It is very cruel to do that to a baby. It's weird, but don't get me wrong, I'm not pro abortion or whatever it is (I'm sort of neutral on the issue), but to me, if a baby is conceived and is only a few weeks old, I don't seem to feel that it is as human as a baby that is actually born. At a few weeks, a baby is only primoridal cells. They don't actually look human yet. But, I know I know...they are still alive even if it's only a few weeks. For some odd reason, I think it's more wrong to have an abortion when the fetus is more developed than when it isn't. And why would someone decide to have an abortion when they are six months pregnant? Do they really need that long time to decide? Bah. I think abortion is okay if it's in the best interest of the mother (i.e. too young, hlth, being able to support the child both emotionally and financially) and if the fetus is less than a month old.
Anyway, so my friend and I were discussing about cloning. Am I for cloning? Half and half. I'm okay with cloning if they are putting it into proper use e.g. developing essential organs from stem cells, but I'm not really for cloning a whole person. Why do we need to do that? Even if couples can't have children, I'm sure there are other ways for them to have a child than cloning. Another issue would be that if we started cloning ppl, they'd be viewed differently and may be discriminated against. I think it'll take a long while before society will view them as "normal." It might turn into something like the movie A.I. where robots were treated as if they were freaks. If they do begin "manufacturing" human beings, who is to say that ppl with twisted minds won't use this method to create humans for ill purposes like war? Another thing would be that there isn't a need to clone human beings. I thought we had too many ppl on the planet already, and at the pace that the world is reproducing aren't we going to overpopulate the Earth?
Okay, you guys are probably bored to death, but that was my two cents on those issues. I'll stop blabbering now. One last note, there is a really interesting book to read if you want your mind to be ticking, it's called Technopoly, but I forgot the author of the book. I'll get back to you guys with the name later.