[Avodah] Kashrut of Cloning

[Zev Sero]

Michael Makovi wrote:
>> http://www.foodqualitynews.com/news/ng.asp?id=13575-fda-declares-cloning
>> 2) If kosher, are they still considered meat?
> 
>>> Again, why not?  What svara would suggest otherwise?
> 
> We know that a mother who is schechted and then gives live birth, the
> baby is "dead". And if that calf grows up and has children, they're
> all "dead" too, and onwards, and there's no chiyuv to schecht.
> 
> I haven't read the literature on this issue, but I could see how one
> could hold that d'oraita, a cloned animal would be considered not a
> real creature, having not come from a womb, and thus not liable for
> schechting.

1. Why would a cloned animal davka not come from a womb?  Right now
uterine replicators are not even close to a real technology; If they
ever do become available, they'll still have nothing to do with
cloning, and would naturally be used far more often for non-clones
than for clones.  

2. A ben pekua is not permitted because it didn't come from a womb;
on the contrary, it did.  It's permitted because it has already been
shechted.  It was part of an organism that was shechted properly, so
its shechita has already happened.  What possible connection could
this have to an animal that has *not* been shechted, and on the
contrary has never even been part of an organism that was *later*
shechted?

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas