(urth) Shaving Clones

[James Wynn]

Stanislaw Bocian said:
>I must note that implanting an embryo which is genetically not related
>neither to mother not to father is perhaps rare, but it is a really
>happening infertility treatment. If you maintain that implanted
>genetically uncognate embryo cannot be someone's son, and if this is
>the whole argument, it seems to me rather weak.

Well, that is certainly not the whole arguement. 

In cases of embryo implantation now, fatherhood rights are tenuous.
They are recognized if the man positively asserts that right
through a relationship with the child. But, yes, Tussah could still
assert that right if he wanted to since he did pay for the
implantation. 

But the question remains "why did he want to assert that right?"
There's no reason to believe he was sterile, assuming Chenile
was his naturally conceived daughter. On the otherhand,
there is no textual proof Tussah even had sexual relations with
Silk's mother. Silk even never met Tussah in life.

But if only mundane family-law questions were the only
mysteries regarding Silk and Tussah. As I said before....

There was certainly no requirement that Tussah be succeeded by a
blood heir. Silk's birth-mom was not Tussah's wife, so Silk was no
legal heir.  Tussah certainly had other women. Furthermore, the
circumstances of Silk's implantation ("the son not of my body") did
not in fact boslter his right to the Caldeship, because the
circumstances were never revealed on the Whorl and could never
be proven and would probably work against Silk's popularity if
it were. Why assert that his "son", not just any son but one "not of
his body" would follow after him? Why not name a trusted grown-up
who could protect himself?

And why go to such extremes to have an expensive black market
embryo succeed you as your son? Especially if you could produce
an heir naturally yourself, and especially if you knew no more
about what it would be when it developed than Blood did
regarding Mucor? And how did he know that Silk would become
Calde'? After all, with his leadership skills, and without Tussah's
direct guidance, he might have ascended to the Ayuntamiento
or succeded Quetzal. (Horn asked Silk this directly without getting
an answer.) And since Silk's embryo came from Urth, how did his 
second set of parents get in the Mainframe?

So how's that? Have I stirred up any doubts in anyone regarding
the straightforwardness of the "son not of my body" issue? I doubt it.

~ Crush