Do clones have souls?

Here's a long message-board thread about whether comic-book clones are real characters (the point is illustrated in the scan in the original post, featuring a clash between the demonic-looking superhero Nightcrawler and the mercenary supervillain Scalphunter - the information you need is that the latter is a 6th Day-style clone of his original self).

You probably won't have time to read the whole thread, but it may amuse you to dip into it. At various points, it gets down to some serious and not-so-serious debate on such issues as whether clones would have souls and whether comics are corrupting children by presenting more-or-less sympathetic characters who have come into existence through cloning - thus undermining the idea that reproductive cloning would be morally wrong.

Some of the comments are quite insightful, as with the remark that Frankenstein's monster was a sensitive and intelligent being who was corrupted only by the unenlightened treatment he received from prejudiced humans. Whatever Mary Shelley's intentions, Frankenstein's crime wasn't defying God or violating nature but bringing into the world a person who would inevitably be mistreated. That's the real issue we'd face with cloning, or so the commenter seems to be saying.

There's much humorous discussion of how clones are handled as characters, but also some people expressing what seems like real unease. The argument about corrupting young readers is interesting - but of course, young people are exposed to an enormous amount of propaganda that reinforces popular moral ideas, including the idea that cloning is wrong or yucky. Why shouldn't they also be exposed to some narratives that implicitly present an opposed viewpoint? If the current manufactured consensus (which I, for one, have not joined) about the evil of reproductive cloning depends on the socialisation of children into the "correct" view, how much respect should we give it?

Not very much at all, I argue. If we had a safe technology for reproduction via somatic cell nuclear transfer, I'd have only slight misgivings about using it. The slight misgivings would relate mainly to the prejudice that the resulting children might face. Much of the opposition to human reproductive cloning strikes me as simply irrational, and it's a pity that we've moved so swiftly and often mindlessly to a supposed consensus that it ought to be banned.