Ideology in My Controversy

In my previous 3 posts, I evaluated general internet sources, scholarly sources, and social media sources pertaining to my controversy: cloning. In this post, I will analyze the ideology behind differing viewpoints.

1. Who is involved in the controversy? If you live in a democracy, you are involved in this controversy. There is a definite split between sides in my older sources: liberal ideals tended to favor cloning while conservative ideals tended to disapprove of it. As my sources get more and more recent, the division isn't black and white, it's gray. People disapprove of certain aspects about cloning while endorse other aspects. These aspects range from human cloning to animal cloning to cloning just for genetic enhancement.
2. Who are the major speakers of these groups? The loudest groups are animal welfare groups. Human cloning is not to the level of advancement that we can argue about it; it's not even a real thing yet (so they tell us). Animal cloning, however, is a different story. With increased sympathy for animals over the years, animal welfare groups have attacked animal cloning with increased intensity. Views differ by whether or not it is ethical to clone an animal or clone it while revising its DNA to be more beneficial for consumables produced by animals, or if animal cloning is ethical at all. Legislation in the European Union bans animal cloning.
3. What kind of social/cultural/economic/political power does each group hold? These welfare groups hold a proportional amount of power to the number of supporters they have. This power is rooted in social and cultural attributes of those who support them and in democracy, that shifts to political power. With high sympathy for animals in today's world, these groups hold a formidable amount of power.
4. What resources are available to different positions? Welfare organizations have news resources to keep an eye on legislative developments regarding animal welfare. It's a bit odd to think, but their supporters are a resource. They can use the voices of their supporters to promote popularity of their ideals.
5. What counts as evidence for the different positions? Animal welfare groups do not use logic to attack scientific advancements in the animal cloning department. They use emotion of their supporters to deter the use of cloning of animals and promote legislation banning animal cloning.
6. Is there power differential between the groups? It seems to be pretty even between those who think animal cloning is okay to enhance the gene pool and those who oppose all animal cloning. I think this is because some know more about the process of cloning and find it okay or not okay while others just take a stand based on their prior views of the topic.
7. Is there any acknowledged common ground between the groups? It's difficult to tell what is all going on in commenters' heads when they write a comment about this subject, but I'm sure most people do not want animals to be harmed for the sake of scientific advancement. The line turns to gray when discussing whether or not we should clone to feed the world's population at the expense of these animals' health.
8. Is there any unacknowledged common ground? Like I stated before, there is an excess of gray area in this debate. Not everyone discussing this subject knows everything about it and they take a stand based on what they do know. Common ground or lack thereof constantly changes when a new fact emerges on the subject. That change of common ground expresses how much unacknowledged common ground there was between one of the many viewpoints in this debate.
9. Do the groups listen to each other? With so many positions in this debate, it's almost impossible not to hear the other viewpoints. Many arguments in this debate are not a matter of logic, but an argument of whose emotional disposition to the subject is most popular. People in today's world are so good at sharing their emotions and getting very defensive if someone else thinks differently, but often times positions hold some emotional commonalities which makes the debate less heated unless two people on total opposite sides of the spectrum "discuss" it.

alliserdem, "Peta2 Stop Animal Slaughter" 8/2/12 via deviantart.com. Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported

*note: I do not endorse nor oppose PETA. It's just an image depicting an animal welfare organization.