Cloning and legal status (discussion)

I'm curious to find out what people keep in mind when dealing with clones.

Mostly the following two questions rise up:
What is their legal status
What is their legal age

I'm interested to see what views there are out there.


Me personally?
I guess I tend to bypass the issue for the most part.
My main clone character lives in the Rogues, so forged birth certificates or what not for legalized citizenship and tourist/work visum in Paragon wouldn't be too hard.
That also clears up the legal age there.


But what if you don't have such means?


Discuss

My main, Gray Huntress, is just one in a series of clones created by the Council. For most of her life she was ignorant of this, because she had been kidnapped by a rogue Council scientist and a hero (the hero she was cloned after). She was able to obtain a legal birth certificate since she was effectively 'newly born' when she was taken, and so she became the child of the hero. The rest of the Council's clones don't need legal identification.

Gray and the rest of the Council's Project: Legion are as old as they appear. The Council couldn't clone full grown people, because it required an egg to be fertilized. So currently, her legal age is 34 because that's how long she has been alive.

Other people have probably found ways to clone 'older' people, but this is just the case with Gray.

Never dealt much with clones but my initial thoughts are:

1) Unless cloning is legal and condoned I imagine whoever did the cloning, whether in the Rogue Isles or Paragon City (or elsewhere) would get some forgeries done if for no other reason than to cover their own butt... I generally would assume that if you had the resources to clone someone illegally you could probably get at lust rudimentary forged documents.

2) If it was legal, or at least common enough that their had to be some kind of official policy, I imagine an intelligence/maturity test would be developed... Something that (at least attempted to) measure more than just IQ but also emotional stability, reasoning, maturity, etc... If a "perfect" clone was made that carried same memories, emotional rections, etc as a full grown adult then it would be laughable for the state to legally recognize them as a newborn. On the flip side it would be laughable to treat a clone of a 50 year old who was a blank slate mentally as a fully capable adult.


As for legal status, I believe the "state" would do their best not to answer that question for a long, long time. Once it was attempted I believe it would be tied up in the court systems for a long, long, longer time. Unless your storyline had clones/cloning at least semi- well, not common but common enough that the issue had to be dealt with - Unless that's been the case for 20+ years I think it would be safe to assume there was yet no definitive, all encompasing legal view on their status. Most definitely not a unified public opinion view.

As for legal age, I don't think they'd have one until their status has been sorted out... I would think if some scumbag cloned children to make child pron or such they would end up being jailed for every possible offense except child porn... Too many legal and ethical questions as yet unanswered but they would find a way to jail the scumbag.

the Clones that have appeared in the RP i hvae been involded with have ducked the legal status issue by all being heroes , and thus have special statues operating as registared heroes , much like any alien , or inter dimesional being ..ie they are covered by laws dealing with heroes ..

Further some of the clones have been able to claim lack of free will , they are programed , thus having a legal out ...much like a robot .

Overall i would come down to the legal status of cloning ..if legel clones would have the same rights and restraints as every one else , legal age being a trait of the cloning process .
If cloning is not legal , then the clones could be considered poroduct , a biological machine ..a bio-bot ..and be covered by the same rules as robots .

Given that we are more likely talking about fast grown clones , so they appear adult , there is the question of how you detect/prove that they are a clone ..and define how the cloning process works ..as this would go much of the wat as to defining what the clone is , and hence shape its legal status.

Interesting points.
I'll admit I did not think of a clone the old fashioned way, without accelerated growth.


Yes, Physical appearance and mental capabilities would factor in.
A body that looks 5 years old but with a mind implant from a 50 year old... would that still be a 50 year old, or a child? Tough one.
As for the 50 year old looking body with the mind of a 5 year old... sadly, there are cases like that already, and iirc, they are not considered independent adults.


For my clone, she's a physical identical copy of an other character, same apparent age.
One is 26, the other is 3. The clone has some memories from the original, but not all, after having gotten free of her creators, she's managed to become an individual capable of fitting in with society (despite a few quirks).
Falsified birth certificate states that they are identical twins, with both parents gone, there's no one to say otherwise.


There was a character ingame that offered genetically engineered 'love doll' clones. Of course, as a villain he wasn't fussed about the legal side, but what of the clients, no? (I should point out that most of those clones were used as bodyguards in practice.)

Cloning is entirely legal in the Rogue Isles. However, such clones are not considered Human Beings, as Aeon Corps. Demonstrates to us since they test most of their stuff ON clones. Vivisection upon clones is also very popular. "Destined" Clones are still not considered human, but then again, neither are Destined Ones. In this particular case, they are elevated from "Sub-human" to "Super-Human" status. Super-Human clones are protected by what passes for the law.


In Paragon City, I think it's fairly safe to say that non-government sponsered cloning is highly Illegal, as Crey Industries demonstrates via their super-secret hush-hush Revenant Hero project. One can presumably obtain a liscense for cloning, but such a liscense would be very hard to get your hands on. Probably as hard to get as a liscense to kill. And such a liscense would probably only be considered valid if the holder was a direct government employee. Clones, when they do turn up, are given the same legal status as their apparent physical age. This would have to be the case, otherwise fully matured clones who are still only 5 years old wouldn't be able to get anywhere in Paragon City, which would be a big no-no with human rights activists, arguments over whether clones or human or not. Clones are therefore also protected by the same laws as everybody else.


The above is merely speculation and logical deduction, so if anybody cares to refute me, go right on ahead.