One thing that confused me about Never Let Me Go was the fact that the
people of this fictional world see the farming of organs from clones as the
best possible route for organ donation.
If science has advanced enough for it to be possible to create clones
from so-called “possibles”, then shouldn’t scientists also be able to grow
human organs in test tubes or petri dishes?
Doing so would achieve the same end goal, but without dealing with the
huge moral issues (and the expenses of keeping who knows how many humans alive
and healthy for around 30 years).
Speaking of moral issues, wouldn’t
the cloning of people in order to farm organs from them be discussed in the
outside world? Yes, characters like
Madame, Miss Lucy, and Miss Emily know about it and have their own opinions,
but what about other people? There is
the possibility that the government (or whoever runs this whole cloning
business) has kept everything a secret, but people find out about
everything. And the clones end up being
out and about in the world at some point (for example, Norfolk), so the chances
of someone learning about the operation are fairly high. Unless morals have changed to a
near-unrecognizable degree (from today’s standards), then people would surely
have problems with actual living humans being created and raised only to be
killed for the sake of providing organs to other people. If that world has vegans (which it probably
does), then it’s sure that someone would be throwing a fit over this. Yes, such a thing might not be shown in the
novel, but it seems to be another strange plot-/world building-hole that
Ishiguro has sidestepped.
All in all, the fact that the people
of this world are implied to be okay with the acts of cloning and “completion”
is something that really bothers me. I
feel as if the social/political climate around the cloning operation is
something that Ishiguro could have elaborated on at least a little bit, because
it seems like there are too many gaps in logic for the complacency of the
public to be plausible, even in such a fictional world.
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