Data picture: The owner and the pet dog play with the ball on the grass. Photo by Xue Jun, reporter of Beijing News
According to the " Rule of Law Daily ", recently, the incident of "a woman spending 250,000 yuan to successfully clone a dead pet dog" has become a hot search, causing heated discussion in society. On the platform, "Can you clone a dead pet?", it launched an online survey, attracting 100,000 people to participate. More than 26,000 of them answered "yes" or "if you can do it if you can, economic conditions allow".
Pet cloning legal regulations need to be improved
With the development of the economy and society, more and more people choose to obtain emotional comfort through pets. Some pet owners treat pets like family members, even better than their family members. Among them, there are many pet owners who choose to clone their pets as a substitute, driven by the mentality of not accepting that their pets are dead. With the advancement of cloning technology and the delay in legal regulation, the pet cloning market will continue to grow in open and secret growth. The legal regulations involving cloning technology in
are far from perfect, and there are many blank spaces left. The existing legal norms related to cloning technology are more limited to the scope of cloning . For example, Article 336 of the Criminal Law stipulates "the crime of illegally implanting gene editing and cloning embryos", which clearly stipulates that gene-edited and cloned human embryos are implanted into human or animal bodies, or gene-edited and cloned animal embryos are implanted into human bodies. If the circumstances are serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or detention, and shall be fined; if the circumstances are particularly serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years but not more than seven years, and shall be fined.
semantic analysis from Criminal Law Article does not involve the collation of pets in the animal's body by implanting gene-edited and cloned animal embryos. In most countries, cloning technology has been regulated in accordance with Administrative Law , and there is basically no criminal law intervention as a "last means". It should be admitted that in China, the criminal regulations, administrative regulations and civil regulations for pet cloning have not yet formed a closed loop, and the improvement of the legal system is still to come.
The price paid for cloning pets
Looking back at the development of cloning technology, it is always a consensus among the majority.
1996, the birth of Dolly, cloning sheep, , triggered a heated discussion around cloning technology around the world. Vigilance, humor and reflection on cloning technology have always been the mainstream in the public opinion field. Audiences who have watched Hollywood blockbusters such as " Day 6 ", "Savior", " Escape from the Cloned Island " should have a deeper impression of this.
summarizes the ebb of the "clone fever" and is nothing more than three major risks: "survival rate risk, ethical risk and unknowable risk". Judging from the results of animal experiments, the survival rate of clonal offspring is generally low, but on the contrary, the rate with certain natural defects is relatively high. Pet cloning institutions cited various information to prove that there was no problem with survival rate, and also guided public opinion to try to make the public and customers believe in the reliability of cloning technology.
However, according to media reports, behind the survival rate of pet cloning institutions is the objectified "animal surrogate mother" and many cloned pets for alternatives. Those cloned babies that have not been selected by customers will eventually be abandoned or destroyed by humanity.
If a pet owner meets the emotional needs, it needs to be at the cost of hurting the "animal surrogate mother" and producing several alternative clonal offspring. I wonder how those pet owners who "can't let go" can let go?
Data picture: cloned Dolly Sheep. Photo/Xinhua News Agency
Unknown risks
Pet owner believes that cloning technology can allow dead pets to "return" to their side. As long as they are a little rational, it is not difficult to see, this is just wishful thinking of pet owners.
cloned child is not the original pet, but a brand new life form; past emotions will not come back, and accepting cloned child form will open up a brand new relationship between humans and pets. The cloned baby body is just a scientifically copied body. It cannot bring the dead pet back to life. The greatest value is nothing more than being a substitute for dead pets, and making the pet owner who "can't get out" feel as if he lives in a certain memory.
Not to mention technical issues, the "delivery" time alone may lead to some irreversible uncertainty. According to the report of the "Rule of Law Daily", "pet owners want to do pet cloning. The collected samples must be delivered to the gene laboratory within 48 hours. Technical personnel will perform a series of operations such as isolation, culture, nuclear transplantation, , clonal embryo cultivation, clonal embryo transplantation, etc. Generally, a 3-month-old clonal cat can be delivered to customers within 8 months, and a 3-month-old clonal dog can be delivered within 12 months."
And humans are actually the most complex animal. In 8 months or 12 months, God knows whether the pet owner who "can't get out" at that time has already come out, or has a new favorite?
Even if the pet owner has been waiting for about a year, he still insists on pet cloning transactions, how to ensure that the cloned life is delivered at that time, rather than similar individuals bought directly from the pet market? Even if the cloned individual who successfully delivered the goods is indeed a cloned "product", it is difficult to ensure that the "product" can meet the pet owner's expectations for the "original pet" in his memory.
In addition, as a cloned individual of a transaction, if there are health problems or natural defects, how should the buyer protect his rights? How should the seller provide a "quality warranty"? These unknowable risks are not only the most urgent and direct problems in the pet cloning market, but also most likely that the buyer has never thought of or at least not fully considered.
is based on technical risks, ethical risks and legal risks that are difficult to avoid in cloning technology. Even if cloning technology develops and matures, there is a high possibility of "off-target". Technology cannot be separated from ethics, and ethics and technology complement each other. Birth, old age, sickness and death are both science, ethics, and life experiences. It is precisely because of death that human beings cherish life and the present.
When love is gone, even if you can't get out of it for a while, you cannot live in your own paranoia. Respecting life, facing loss, cherishing the past with love pets, and cherishing the present with beautiful memories is the greatest respect for love pets.
Written by/Wang Lin (Legal Scholar)
Edited by/Xu Qiuying
Proofreading/Liu Yue
