Cloning for the Greater Good
Many advances in science continue to bring possibilities and hope to people around the world. The possibility of therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research not only brings hope to people with diseases but also brings fear to many when the thought of clones walking the earth comes to mind. Therapeutic cloning is an advanced procedure also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) where DNA is removed from an egg and replaced with DNA from a somatic cell. After the DNA is transferred into the egg, the egg is shocked into thinking it was fertilized and cells start to divide. The "fertilized" egg or embryo's stem cells are harvested for research to find cures for diseases and other medical answers. The problem that arises from this whole process is when the stem cells are removed from embryos it essentially kills them. The question that divides people today is if therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research should be banned. People are torn about therapeutic cloning and embryos being used for medical research in many ways including the scientific and medial success and possibilities, embryos as a form of life, and the fear of humans being cloned.
Many eyebrows are being raised to the many different possibilities of therapeutic cloning and embryonic research as hope for people with diseases but the success thus far
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also has people questioning the hype. Embryos used for research are desired because they can evolve into any type of body tissue which can hopefully lead to cures for diseases and medical treatments. Brian Hansen stated, "Some scientists think embryonic stem-cell research could someday produce cures for Parkinson's disease, diabetes and ...
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Therapeutic cloning is the process whereby parts of a human body are grown independently from a body from STEM cells collected from embryos for the purpose of using these parts to replace dysfunctional ones in living humans. Therapeutic Cloning is an important contemporary issue as the technology required to conduct Therapeutic Cloning is coming, with cloning having been successfully conducted on Dolly the sheep. This process is controversial as in the process of collecting STEM cells from an embryo, the embryo will be killed. Many groups, institutions and religions see this as completely unacceptable, as they see the embryo as a human life. Whereas other groups believe that this is acceptable as they do not believe that the embryo is a human life, as well as the fact that this process will greatly benefit a large number of people. In this essay I will compare the view of Christianity who are against Therapeutic Cloning with Utilitarianism who are in favour of Therapeutic Cloning.
Children grow up watching movies such as Star Wars as well as Gattaca that contain the idea of cloning which usually depicts that society is on the brink of war or something awful is in the midsts but, with todays technology the sci-fi nature of cloning is actually possible. The science of cloning obligates the scientific community to boil the subject down into the basic category of morality pertaining towards cloning both humans as well as animals. While therapeutic cloning does have its moral disagreements towards the use of using the stem cells of humans to medically benefit those with “incomplete” sets of DNA, the benefits of therapeutic cloning outweigh the disagreements indubitably due to the fact that it extends the quality of life for humans.
Brown, Alistair. "Therapeutic Cloning: The Ethical Road To Regulation Part I: Arguments For And Against & Regulations." Human Reproduction & Genetic Ethics 15.2 (2009): 75-86. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Benefits of stem cell research can be overwhelming. Today, millions of people around the world suffer from incurable diseases. Stem cell research could help the scientific community find a breakthrough in developing a cure. By observing stem cells develop into mature human tissue, scientists can better understand how embryos develop. “Normal” human development can be recorded. This knowledge can be used to help prevent birth defects, for instance.
Long after Shelley wrote her classic masterpiece Frankenstein and Huxley wrote Brave New World, the ethical controversy of cloning conflicts with modern artificial intelligence research. The question that challenges the idea of negative or positive behavior in a replicated machine relies on its similarity to the source of the clone, whether it emulates human behavior or acts as a “superintelligence” with supernatural characteristics void of human error. Humanity will not know the absolute answers concerning behavioral outcome without creating a physical being, an idea portrayed in Shelley’s Frankenstein in which the creation of a monster emulates from his creator’s attempts to generate life. At the time of the novel’s publication, the idea of replicating a soul portrayed a nightmarish theme with little consideration for the potential scientific advancements to facilitate in reality. It lead the genetic idea of manmade intelligence and its ethics emerging from the relativity of space, time, and original life on the planet. The debate of the existing possibility of sentient machines continues to progress, but the consideration of ethical questions such as “Should we create these artificial people?” and “How does this enactment define the soul and mind?” warranted from primitive questions about machine learning within the last century. After the initial proof of possibility for sentient machines, the perfection of cloning will generate “good” behavior at its perfect state several generations from now. The perfect machine portrays the potential for sensible human behaviors including compassion, mentality, empathy, alertness, and love. Humanity of the twenty-first century possesses the knowledge to fantasize the idea of artificial ...
Cloning is a procedure of creating genetically indistinguishable organisms through nonsexual means (Devolder 2008). After years of countless research and experimenting, scientists successfully cloned their first mammal using a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). In Devolder’s paper she states, “Somatic cells are any cells other than the reproductive system cells” (Devolder 2008). Scientists realized they could take fully developed somatic cells from any part of the body and, through the SCNT system, use the cells to make a genetic copy of the cell. This growth in cell research is binding scientists in a race to establish their findings so they could be the first in the finish line. This pressure to be renowned has driven scientists to attempt to control the very natural process of life. Our world is plagued by disease, an increase in population and poverty with limited resources to satisfy the basic needs of mankind, so cloning is often regarded as the solution. Cloning for reproduction and therapy has improved drastically displaying a lot of potential uses but is vastly outweighed with larger risks.
cloning has been a very intense argument; human cloning is either “playing God” or (a
In the world today, issues such as Global Warming and the War in Iraq take the front cover on any newspaper, but in the world tomorrow, the concept of cloning will become an ever-more pressing issue. How do you define the term cloning? Well, in the words of Jac...
Hirsen, James L. “Who’s the Victor on the Stem Cell Debate?” 7 Aug. 2001. 24 Sept. 2007 < http://www.firstliberties.com/stem_cell_debate.html>.
Herbert, Wray. The World After Cloning. U.S. News and World Report. March 10, 1997: 59-64.
Position one states that we should be able to go through with cloning as long as there are limitations attached. These limitations include deciding on a length in time in which the embryo has to be harvested, having the government monitor the individuals or groups that engage in the research, a ban on commerce in living cloned human embryos, human subjects will be researched on with the highest standards of ethics, a prior scientific review of the proposed uses of cloned embryos to judge their unique medical and scientific benefits, and research will continue into non-embryonic sources of stem cells. Position one, along with positions two and three will be discussed further in the following paper.
Could you imagine being able to create new organs, tissues, muscles, and even food? With embryonic stem cell technology, believe it or not, these things are possible. Stem cells are the body's raw materials. Specifically, they are cells from which all other cells with specialized functions are generated. Under the right conditions in the body or in a laboratory, stem cells can divide to form more cells called daughter cells. These daughter cells either become new stem cells or turn into specialized cells with a more specific function, such as blood cells, brain cells, muscle cells or bone cells. The possibilities are almost endless. The debate and main issue with this technology is that the actual stem cells come from embryos. Embryos are an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development. Although there is controversy surrounding these cells, embryonic stem cells should continue to be researched and used, because they have so much potential.
1) Robertson, John A. “Human Cloning and the Challenge of Regulation,” The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 339, no. 2 (July 9, 1998), pp. 119-122.
Recent discoveries involving cloning have sparked ideas of cloning an entire human body (ProQuest Staff). Cloning is “the production of an organism with genetic material identical to that of another organism” (Seidel). Therapeutic cloning is used to repair the body when something isn’t working right, and it involves the production of new cells from a somatic cell (Aldridge). Reproductive cloning involves letting a created embryo develop without interference (Aldridge). Stem cells, if isolated, will continue to divide infinitely (Belval 6). Thoughts of cloning date back to the beginning of the twentieth century (ProQuest Staff). In 1938, a man decided that something more complex than a salamander should be cloned (ProQuest Staff). A sheep named Dolly was cloned from an udder cell in 1997, and this proved that human cloning may be possible (Aldridge). In 1998, two separate organizations decl...
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