Wednesday, March 17, 2004

Century City

Yesterday was the premier of CBS's new show, Century City. The show has an interesting premise. It is a legal drama that takes place in the year 2030. The premise caught my attention because I will be in the prime of my legal career in another 26 years. The first episode centered around smuggling a cloned embryo into the United States. The purpose of the clone at issue was to create a liver that could be transplanted into a 7 year-old boy. According to the show, cloning for any purpose is still illegal in the United States in the year 2030. The most interesting part of the show was when the defendant made his empassioned plea from the stand. The defendant pointed out that abortion is legal in our country. We allow women to kill a fully developed and viable fetus just for their own convenience. Why shouldn't we allow the defendant to end the viability of this embryo for the purpose of saving his son's life?

I thought the defendant made an excellent point. The legalization of abortion has devalued human life in our country to such an extent that there really is no logical point at which we should prevent the killing of a human that cannot speak for itself. However, this logic leads me to the conclusion that our country should end legalized abortion and not to the conclusion that our country should legalize cloning for the purpose of harvesting organs.

As far as the show itself goes ... I don't highly recommend it. It's okay, but I am not going to put the Wild Banshee stamp of approval on this one.