DNA Paranoia
Ok. There's nothing wrong with a little healthy paranoia. After all, someone may actually be out to get you or yours. However, one has to decide upon one's boundaries. For example. Is it ok to have one's cousins volunteer/kidnapped to be used in the course of true science? One's second cousins? They are related to you by DNA. Is it a question of who is in control or how close the relationship?How does this relate to stem cells in an umbilical cord? Yes, stem cells are useful at this time as vessels for DNA to be put into. But value is determined by who needs it and who doesn't want it. The original DNA riding in those stem cells may not be very useful at this time to researchers so many people let their used umbilical cords and placentas like used napkins go the merry way of most rubbish. If someone wants some of your trash they are likely welcome to it. Same with hair from haircuts, skin cells left on hotel towels, scrapings from your teeth as well as pulled teeth. These also carry DNA in useable forms. Maybe not quite so handy as stem cells, but hey, it's there. Same with your cousins. They have DNA strings that match yours. Will you control them? Should they control you? Partial control?
Since science doesn't back up, what about the future? Will our DNA become intellectual property as well as a piece of our person? Define your boundaries. If you give blood are you sure the DNA isn't being used to form some colony of drones to work in subterranean mines filled with rabid canaries? How about those extra eggs being flushed from women in fertility clinics? Helpless sperm in sperm banks? Non-used embryoes? Again, define your personal boundaries of concern.
If you are worried about copies of yourself or your children enslaved or mutated for unknown purposes, then it would be a good idea to quit leaving portions of yourself around. Pick up the hair from hair cuts, quit leaving fingernail clippings in trash cans, sign extensive agreements with medical facilities to get your physical trash back--including all used sponges and bandaids and extraneous body parts--like your old appendix. However, please remember there is a small thing called a bio-hazard. Your parts and fuids, valuable as they may be to you and crazed researchers, may carry blood born pathogens that the rest of us would really appreciate being handled in a professional and safe manner to keep from infecting our parts and fluids.
The boundaries? Still working on them? Well, law in these United States says that all people are equal. Since it doesn't define exactly how we must be brought into this world, that also means all clones. So, if your DNA is used to create others--assuming you are a person--those people would enjoy the full protection of the law to live out their lives in any way they wish--even if they do look like you. You aren't going to be able to tell your clone they can't go to the movies, marry the gardener, or quit their topless dancing job. If your DNA is spirited across the border then laws there will determine what happens to them. Remember that each individual is a sum of all of its parts and that includes its memories, experiences, and education as well as nutrition. Your DNA isn't you. It is your body. Like your shirt. Identical twins aren't actually identical in body or personality. Neither would your DNA twin be.
The question of harvesting of parts has come up. Even if law would allow, think of the economics. It is much easier to steal a kidney than to wait for one to grow up. I watched a news program of victims from rural areas of the world who were offered jobs in foreign countries only to find themselves minus a kidney or other body part and left with horrendous scars. Oh, and no job.
Crime. Would someone having your DNA and fingerprints commit crimes and leave you hanging for them. Maybe. This would mean a change in laws using DNA as evidence. (Something I think is long overdue anyway.) After all, if a criminal is out there making crimes and he framed his DNA twin, you for instance, his career might be a bit short.
The best way to determine what to do is to determine where your boundary of responsibility lies and where your boundary of paranoia, healthy or otherwise, keeps you comfortable. How far are you willng to go to keep your DNA within within the family? How far can it go without you fighting to protect it--or those pesky cousins?
Within this boundary you have set for yourself, control your life as you see fit. Without, don't worry about it. To do so leads to madness.
