What are you talking about?  Read my previous comment.  I said that "ethics" ALONE is not the reason why cloning of humans has not been successful. I agree that the ethical issues are a barrier, they are just not the only one.  Just because you have "written proposals on manipulation of stem cells"  in no way means that you would actually be successful in cloning a human if ethics weren't an issue.

I will concede that you probably know more about this topic than I do.  I am but a lowly physician and work on the clinical side of things, although I did participate in quite alot of transgenic research prior to going to med school.  Regardless, I stand by my original point.  Night. 

When I say ethics I mean that it would take multiple attempts with many failures. However it is within our technological grasp to do it.

Heck without ethics we could just make ips cells (only using oct4 and sox2 to avoid using oncogenes) and put them in the icm of a blastocyst and place the blastocyst within a female. Once the child is born it would be a chimera so we would have to breed him or her with another person and force the chimera to conceive multiple children in order to make sure a full genetic clone is conceived. Of course we would have to slightly alter the clones DNA with a marker to be able to identify it when it is born (I guess we could just use PCR but hey no ethics, might as well take the easy route). Plus we will still probably have problems with demethylase not being a hundred percent effective but at least we get around the telomerase problem that occurs with somatic nuclear transfer. The clone probably won't live a long life because of genetic problems arising from using ips cells, but it will be a clone nonetheless. Any of its organs can be transferred with the originals with no histocompatibility problems whatsoever.

I hope you can see how ethically wrong my above paragraph is. However if we really wanted to we could do it. What makes you say we couldn't?

hey cool... i could have a kid all by myself without someone else throwing their muck in with my god-like DNA.

Actually it's nothing more than cultural indoctrination.

Well I agree that this would have a negative impact on adoption, but I'm sure that in the future adoption will no longer be an issue, as all children will probably not be concieved naturally, but rather in a laboratory. So there won't be any more unwanted kids, plus overpopulation could be solved by passing legislation limiting the number of kids a couple can have to 1-2, and making it illegal for children to be concieved naturally (they could make some sort of very advanced contraceptive methods mandatory).

Still, 2 men being able to concieve a child without a woman's help is an amazing discovery just for the sake of science (plus it could come in handy if a plague wipe's out all the women).

Why?

There's really no other reason we would "feel" closer to our blood relatives. We're culturaly indoctrinated to believe that there's some sort of connection between people who are blood relatives. If you let go of this preconception, you'll realise it's all bogus. In reality you're gonna have much more of a connection with someone with whom you spent your whole life with, then with some stranger you've never met before, but with whom you happen to share DNA. Heck, I feel much closer to my besft friend (woth whom I'm not realted in any way), then I do to my half-brother whom I haven't seen in years, and with whom I rarely interacted. My best friend is much more of a brother to me, then my half-brother.

This can end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy though. Having the social preconception that there's some sort of connection between people who are blood relatives, you may actually create this connection yourself, by expecting to find it and being more open with the person with whom you expect to find it.

Regarding the aversion to adoption, it's mostly due to the cultural rule that people have to get married and have children. A child is considered a sign of success as a human being, and not being able to concieve your own child is considered a sign of failure and weakness.

If this or cloning was ever extended to humans, it would make the abortion debate in the United States look like one giant circle with pro-lifers and pro-choicers holding hands and singing Kumbaya. It is one thing to disagree on where life begins vs. whether individuals should be mandated to do with their own body according to what their community places in law, but it is a whole 'nother gigantic beast when we are talking about natural reproduction vs. unnatural reproduction.

You will not find many who agree that mankind should be playing God when it comes to the creation of human life via a syringe and test tube. Even if you do, they are a fringe minority whose values and political beliefs are not reflective of the moderate majority of most societies.

Obviously there are connections that can hardly happen between non-related parents/children:

- a genetic connection.

- in the case of most mothers/fathers, an emotional bond (i.e. connection) that starts forming as soon as the mother gets pregnant. The baby can hear the parents' voices, the parents can feel the baby's movements and sometimes see the baby in medical exams, etc etc...

- the simple idea of "possession" ("we made this baby and it's ours"). Consciously or subconsciously, I find it hard to argue that this connection doesn't exist in the minds of most parents.

I don't understand why you would deny all these obvious connections and attribute everything to cultural indoctrination.

Being a game site i read the title as 

Steam Sells: Same sex couples to ...

Talk about being confused!