The Cloning Debate Not so far in the future, a young boy of the age of six, dying a heart-wrenching death, will only be able survive with a bone marrow transplant. His parents will have searched near and far for a match, but none will come to their aid. The only possible way that they can produce a perfect match for their son's bone marrow is to clone their son. Unfortunately, at this time this topic is still being discussed and debated upon with the government. Their only child that has been their treasure for six years might die. A clone of their son becomes their apple of aspiration to keep the treasure from being buried. With a scenario as presented above, cloning might seem like the answer to hundreds of lives taken at the expense of uncontrollable forces. But is there another side to the story? Isn't there always? Professor Kevin Williams of Georgetown University is still depicting the ambiguity of this topic when he states, "Like Adam and Eve, we want to be God, to be in control. The question is, what are the limits?" (U.S. News World Report). Making an identical copy of another human being is a rather drastic move, a move that in most people's eyes can only be carried through by God. Some deem that cloning would put us in the shoes of God. They believe that instead of God creating life, we would. Some professors beg to differ, like David Fletcher of Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL who argues, "It is still only God who creates life." Perhaps cloning is not the answer and our society should leave reproduction up to the natural ways. But then one must ask themselves the question of 'why not'. Is there some horrible outcome that will back fire due to the aberrant ways of creating a child? Is bring... ... middle of paper ... ...volunteers, would we misuse it like Green thinks? Are we capturing the phenomenon or is it destined to engross us? Sources Cited Coghlan, Andy. "Reprogram Your Body." www.newscientist.com/nsplus/insight/clone/reprogram.html (16 April 2001). Decker, Christine. "OSU Ethics Specialist To Provide National Report On Religion, Cloning." www.orst.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/1997/March97/courtclone.htm (17 April 2001). Green, Ronald M. "I, Clone." www.sciam.com/1999/0999bionic/0999green.html (17 April 2001). Herbert, Wray. "The World After Cloning." www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/970310/10clon/htm (16 April 2001). Vere, Steven. "The Case for Cloning Humans." www.best.com/~vere/cloning/htm (17 April 2001). Wachbroit, Robert. "Genetic Encores: The Ethics of Human Cloning." www.puaf.umd.edu/IPPP/Fall97Report/cloning/htm (17 April 2001).
According to Silver, William Safire, columnist of The New York Times, views cloning as a way of taking someone’s identicality away. The uniqueness of the cloned person would be lacking, thus evolution would be restricted. Silver says that Safire is wrong because evolution and the progress of mankind don’t intertwine, and is unpredictable. Safire, along with almost everyone, cannot prove arguments of religion because religion is simply not provable. Silver thinks that some religious people are concerned that clonin...
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.
Cameron, Nigel, (2003) Cloning at Christmas: a reflective commentary. The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Retrieved October 3, 2004 from: http://www.thecbc.org/redesigned/research_display.php?id=43
His act of science would question if cloning was a practical and morally acceptable thing to do. Firstly, even attempting to clone insults God's role as a creator. Showing full determination, Aldona says, "Christian, however, feel that we have no right to play the role of God, because He is the only one Creator and act of creation depends on Him." (Zbikowska 13-16). We know God's role is to create men, women, animals and nature in his image in the way he sees perfect, not the way we see ourselves as perfect. God has the intention of making us, and when others try to mimic him it deteriorates his role in the world. Aside from the idea that cloning is insulting to God, it can also hurt others. Even though cloning has been developing for the past few decades, it is still a fairly unsuccessful procedure. In most cases, cloning is successful only less than one percent of the time. Moreover,
In conclusion, it is clear to see that cloning is not the taboo it has been made out to be. It is a new boundary that humanity has never encountered before and so it is understandable that people have qualms about ‘playing God’ by shaping a life. Although some might argue that it is immoral to clone human beings, the truth is that it is unethical not to. Given that such technology has the potential to save millions upon millions of lives, not tapping into that industry would have dire consequences on the future. In this case, the ends more certainly justify the means.
In the essay, Cloning Reality: Brave New World by Wesley J. Smith, a skewed view of the effects of cloning is presented. Wesley feels that cloning will end the perception of human life as sacred and ruin the great diversity that exists today. He feels that cloning may in fact, end human society as we know it, and create a horrible place where humans are simply a resource. I disagree with Wesley because I think that the positive effects of controlled human cloning can greatly improve the quality of life for humans today, and that these benefits far outweigh the potential drawbacks that could occur if cloning was misused.
“Cloning represents a very clear, powerful, and immediate example in which we are in danger of turning procreation into manufacture.” (Kass) The concept of cloning continues to evoke debate, raising extensive ethical and moral controversy. As humans delve into the fields of science and technology, cloning, although once considered infeasible, could now become a reality. Although many see this advancement as the perfect solution to our modern dilemmas, from offering a potential cure for cancer, AIDS, and other irremediable diseases, its effects are easily forgotten. Cloning, especially when concerning humans, is not the direction we must pursue in enhancing our lives. It is impossible for us to predict its effects, it exhausts monetary funds, and it harshly abases humanity.
Beginning as a dystopic science fiction movie about the cloning issue, this motion picture more and more turns into an action movie full of explosions during the course of action. This movie shows an ambivalent attitude towards new technologies using the SCI-FI genre. In everyday life, new technologies are used, but the high-end technology represented by cloning for spare parts is only affordable for the rich elite. The concept of cloning humans brings to light more than just a simple yes-we should, or no-we-should-not answer. To answer whether we should clone humans also brings to light science, technology, moral and ethical concerns, as well as religions notions. It is more of a question of: If we clone humans will we lose what makes us
With scientific and technological breakthroughs come new ethical dilemmas. Stem cell research and the almost common practice of organ transplants have brought new complexity to the debate of when life begins and the sanctity of life. Among these debates, the notion of “savior siblings” has surfaced. A “‘savior sibling’ refers to a child who is able to provide a bone marrow or other hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) to their sick sibling in order to treat his/her serious genetic or malignant disease” (Strong 188). This new type of organ donation has raised a new conversation between philosophers, doctors, and lawmakers on the ethics of these procedures. As these conversations arise and countries create
The story of ‘The Red Room’ by H.G. Wells is told to us in first
John A. Robertson’s article “Human Cloning and the Challenge of Regulation” raises three important reasons on why there shouldn’t be a ban on Human Cloning but that it should be regulated. Couples who are infertile might choose to clone one of the partners instead of using sperm, eggs, or embryo’s from anonymous donors. In conventional in vitro fertilization, doctors attempt to start with many ova, fertilize each with sperm and implant all of them in the woman's womb in the hope that one will result in pregnancy. (Robertson) But some women can only supply a single egg. Through the use of embryo cloning, that egg might be divisible into, say 8 zygotes for implanting. The chance of those women becoming pregnant would be much greater. (Kassirer) Secondly, it would benefit a couple at high risk of having offspring with a genetic disease choose weather to risk the birth of an affected child. (Robertson) Parents who are known to be at risk of passing a genetic defect to a child could make use of cloning. A fertilized ovum could be cloned, and the duplicate tested for the disease or disorder. If the clone were free of genetic defects, then the other clone would be as well. Then this could be implanted in the woman and allowed to mature to term. (Heyd) Thirdly, it would be used to obtain tissue or organs...
Imagine a world in which a clone is created only for its organs to be transplanted into a sick person’s body. Human cloning has many possible benefits, but it comes with concerns. Over the past few decades, researchers have made several significant discoveries involving the cloning of human cells (ProQuest Staff). These discoveries have led to beneficial medical technologies to help treat disease (Aldridge). The idea of cloning an entire human body could possibly revolutionize the medical world (Aldridge). However, many people are concerned that these advancements would degrade self-worth and dignity (Hyde and Setaro 89). Even though human cloning brings about questions of bioethics, it has the potential to save and recreate the lives of humans and to cure various diseases without the use of medication (Aldridge, Hyde and Setaro).
Finally, human cloning for reproductive purposes is too expensive. The cost to clone one human could be more than $100,000 (Herper). That is extremely high considering the cost of in vitro fertilization. In vitro fertilization costs between $3,500 and $25,000 depending on the procedure (Advanced Fertility Services). If someone could not become pregnant it is much more likely that they would chose to use fertilization and be guaranteed a healthy, normal child rather than spend the money to clone a child that could have defects. With fertilization costing only one fourth of cloning, why would someone choose to clone?
Robinson, Bruce. “Human Cloning: Comments by political groups, religious authorities, and individuals.” 3 August 2001. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. 1 October 2001 <http://www.religioustolerance.org/clo_reac.htm>.