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Cloning ethical and moral debate
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Cloning ethical and moral debate
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Recently, we have all seen the controversy over whether or not we should attempt to clone. If you haven't heard: A group of scientists in Scotland announced the birth of a sheep cloned from embryonic cells, presaging Dolly. Dolly's was the birth heard round the world. The first mammal ever cloned from a single adult cell, she was living proof that scientists had solved one of the most challenging problems of cell biology. Her creation raised a troubling question: Can humans, too, be cloned? And if so, Should humans be able to play God?
Cloning has been an idea that the world has awaited and feared for decades. Cloning has been around since the 1950s when 2 scientists made a frog from tadpole cells. In the 60s, scientists cloned frogs again, but this time using cells from older tadpoles. What has just happened recently is the cloning of a mammal. The sheep named Dolly.
A MAMMAL born from a single adult cell. The question is: Is cloning good or evil? Some say this is one of the most remarkable breakthroughs of science history. Man Creates Life. Amazing. But, let's rethink this..
Is the ability for man to create life (in a sense play god), is this a good thing or a bad thing? Why would it be a bad thing? This is an incredible breakthrough of scientific history. This area of microbiology needs to be further explored. There are several advantages that cloning may serve.
A child needs a bone marrow transplant within the next two years. You could clone a copy and retrieve the bone marrow. Cloning would give lesbians a way to bear a biological descendant without visiting the spermbank. Perhaps the army could breed stronger, braver soldiers to use just for battle. Let's look at the advantages to cloning mammals: A farmer could clone his prize cow over and over making several copies of it, producing better milk with more nutrients.
A shepard could clone the sheep with the best wool and he wouldn't need as many sheep. We could clone endangered species, making them no longer endangered. The list of benefits are endless. I realize that cloning is immoral to many people. The power of a creationism has become ours, in a sense. Many are skeptical of this science but the future will reveal that it is going to become more and more researched.
If a random individual were asked twenty years ago if he/she believed that science could clone an animal, most would have given a weird look and responded, “Are you kidding me?” However, that once crazy idea has now become a reality, and with this reality, has come debate after debate about the ethics and morality of cloning. Yet technology has not stopped with just the cloning of animals, but now many scientists are contemplating and are trying to find successful ways to clone human individuals. This idea of human cloning has fueled debate not just in the United States, but also with countries all over the world. I believe that it is not morally and ethically right to clone humans. Even though technology is constantly advancing, it is not reasonable to believe that human cloning is morally and ethically correct, due to the killing of human embryos, the unsafe process of cloning, and the resulting consequences of having deformed clones.
Another perk to cloning is that we could possibly alter animals to give more effective products, or more desirable products. For example a herd of sheep in Montreal have a gene in their DNA that lets them produce spider silk through their milk. It is said that bulletproof vests can be made from this silk. Just imagine the possibilities if we were able to create such animals. By using the cloning process, they can make many products that can be helpful to the environment and the people.
“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.
.... Until a successful attempt of creating life emerges in upcoming history, the possibility of cloning may never reveal its truth. Matters of opinion judge the positive and negative outcomes of artificial animal reproduction, and numerous instances prove its everlasting positive outlook for world community, science, and theology.
In recent discussions of cloning, a controversial issue has been whether cloning is ethical. On the one hand, some argue that scientists “playing god” by playing creating life However, Scientists argue that cloning is not “playing god” it’s a way to understand and improve human life. They believe god gave them the tools to improve society and increase our chances of survival
But on the contrary, many scientists believe that cloning can be such a positive achievement, not only for medical purposes, but for fighting extinction. For example, what if they could clone many of the endangered species that exist today? There are very few hundred of many beautiful animals that if something isn’t done to save them, they will be extinct in a few years. So if scientists could successfully clone and create these endangered species, although it would still depend on the clone maturing correctly and being able to reproduce successfully, it could be a great
In the past, cloning always seemed like a faraway scientific fantasy that could never really happen, but sometimes reality catches up to human ingenuity and people discover that a fictional science is all too real. Such was the fate of cloning when Dolly, a cloned sheep, came into existence during 1997, as Beth Baker explains (Baker 45). In addition to opening the eyes of millions of people, the breakthrough raised many questions about the morality of cloning humans. The greatest moral question is, when considering the pros against the cons, if human cloning is an ethical practice. There are two different types of cloning and both entail completely different processes and both are completely justifiable at the end of the day.
It's been three years since the birth of Dolly, the world's first successfully cloned animal. The announcement of her birth brought about much ado and sparked many debates concerning the morality of cloning. In the three years since Dolly was created, the debate over cloning has swelled and receded, but has never been put to rest. A compelling issue that has come into focus in the past several years is the idea of human cloning. Many scientists believe that it is inevitable because the technology is there, and anything that can be done eventually will be done. They preach the value of human clones, dropping phrases like 'cure for disease' and 'prolonged life' to entice the public into supporting their cause. Though these concepts seem beguiling, the notion of human cloning, when looked at as a whole, has serious repercussions and should not be entertained lightly.
Imagine a world where everyone looked like you and was related to you as a sibling, cousin, or any form of relation, wouldn’t that be freaky? Although cloning is not an important issue presently, it could potentially replace sexual reproduction as our method of producing children. Cloning is a dangerous possibility because it could lead to an over-emphasis on the importance of the genotype, no guaranteed live births, and present risks to both the cloned child and surrogate mother. It also violates the biological parent-child relationship and can cause the destruction of the normal structure of a family. The cloning of the deceased is another problem with cloning because it displays the inability of the parents to accept the child’s death and does not ensure a successful procedure. Along with the risks, there are benefits to Human Reproductive Cloning. It allows couples who cannot have a baby otherwise to enjoy parenthood and have a child who is directly related to them. It also limits the risk of transmitting genetic diseases to the cloned child and the risk of genetic defects in the cloned child. Although the government has banned Human Reproductive Cloning, the issue will eventually come to the surface and force us to consider the 1st commandment of God, all men are equal in the eyes of god, but does this also include clones? That is the question that we must answer in the near future in order to resolve a controversy that has plagued us for many years.
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.
In July 2000, Dr. Ian Wilmut, a geneticist of Scotland publicized the cloning of a lamb named Dolly. Out of 277 attempts at fussing cells, only 29 of the fused cells became embryos, on which resulted in one pregnancy, which then became Dolly. The cloning of Dolly was the first successful cloning of a mammal. (Medicine’s Brave New World). The successful cloning of Dolly brought a wild borage of thoughts on whether this would lead to the cloning of humans. Most people would believe that it'd best to keep at experimentation and research of the subject, but there are many factors that need to be considered before delving into this topic. More than 90% of cloning attempts fail to produce a viable offspring that will be strong enough for the fussing of cells to harvest. So, why do people believe that human cloning will soon be a thing of the future? Though the evident fact that new technology will further science along with human life, the chances of human cloning, cloning of any kind for that fact, are still slim. According to the man behind Dol...
In recent years our world has undergone many changes and advancements, cloning is a primary example of this new modernism. On July 5th, 1995, Dolly, the first cloned animal, was created. She was cloned from a six-year-old sheep, making her cells genetically six years old at her creation. However, scientists were amazed to see Dolly live for another six years, until she died early 2005 from a common lung disease found in sheep. This discovery sparked a curiosity for cloning all over the world, however, mankind must answer a question, should cloning be allowed? To answer this question some issues need to be explored. Is cloning morally correct, is it a reliable way to produce life, and should human experimentation be allowed?
Last of all, Cloning is not ethical, many religious groups look down upon cloning and think it’s not proper because they think it’s like playing God. Many scientists were mainly thinking about cloning animals and, most likely, humans in the future to harvest their organs and then kill them. “Who would actually like to be harvested and killed for their organs?” “Human cloning exploits human beings for our own self-gratification (Dodson, 2003).” A person paying enough money could get a corrupt scientist to clone anybody they wanted, like movie stars, music stars, athletes, etc (Andrea Castro 2005),” whether it be our desire for new medical treatments or our desire to have children on our own genetic terms (Dodson, 2003).
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...