It's legal, so who are we cloning first?
The Parliament has now passed legislation which allows the cloning of embryos for medical research. The bill's opponents argue that it's unethical, and involves playing God. They say that the slippery slope will lead to cloning becoming commonplace – that once the cat's out of the bag, it'll lead to a Blade Runner-esque nightmare world where cloning is as commonplace as Xeroxing. It's a difficult ethical issue, certainly. And having wrestled carefully with it, all I have to say is – awesome, which celebrity are we cloning first?
Bear in mind, though, that it's only legal for research purposes, okay? So each of the following suggestions will presented very much from a scientific perspective.
Shane Warne. It was alleged in Paul Barry's biography earlier this year that Warney had slept with over 1000 women. The champion leggie denies it. Is this true? To find out, we will see if 1000 Warne clones can can rack up over 1 million conquests.
Kochie. To see if a terrible sense of humour is genetic, we will ask 20 clones of Kochie whether a single one of them finds his infamous joke about Janette Howard funny. We can fund it by selling the 19 clones to the Today Show, which is desperate to find even one.
Ian Thorpe. People say his body makes him the perfect swimmer. But he's given the sport away, hurting Australian swimming. No matter, we'll just slot in a spare and test the hypothesis that he will keep on bagging gold.
The Beatles. I don't know what you'd get if you reproduced them, but it certainly wouldn't be Oasis. I think that Gallaghers ought to know that.
Britney Spears. Is appalling taste in men hereditary? Exposing (something she's been doing a lot of lately) several clone Britneys to dodgy wannabe rappers will answer this important research question once and for all.
Julia Gillard. If there was more than one of her, would Kevin Rudd be willing to have more women on Labor's frontbench?
Kevin Federline.With an army of K-Fed clones, there would be an audience for his album. There would probably be a population explosion, though.
John Laws. Many have pondered whether being gay is hereditary. By cloning Lawsy, we could test whether gay-bashing is as well.
Paul Collingwood. With him batting 1-6, could England win a Test in Australia?
John Howard. To test just how mad Peter Costello would get if the leadership was handed over to a younger version of the PM. Note that this could just as easily be tested by giving it to Tony Abbott.
Any more suggestions? Feel free to just clone mine.
Dominic Knight