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A dialogue about human cloning
Cons about animal cloning
Argument About Human Cloning
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Cloning. Many people associate it with science-fiction novels, not with real life, but animal cloning is a process that is being attempted today all over the world, and human cloning might be next. But should cloning be made illegal? According to the Washington Post, cloning should be made illegal because all nursery rhymes would have to be rewritten: Mary didn’t have a lamb, she had two lambs and a sister named Bridget who looked exactly like her. Mary and Bridget went to school one day with both lambs, but the school board threw them out as cloning was against the rules. Also, the role of the father is not important in cloning. He can make one child, but the next is done by Xerox machine. Cloned children, however, would also celebrate Father’s Day. All cloning should be made completely illegal because such an insignificant amount of births are successful, nearly all clones have health problems, and the technology is far from perfected.
Very few animal clones make it to birth, and the ones that do usually have serious health problems, including physical deformities (such as enlarged umbilical cords) to life-threatening conditions (like being born with no immune system) (Boyce 42). Less than three percent of all cloning attempts succeed: “ . . . scientists have good reason to be pessimistic: several years of animal cloning work has taught them that most cloned animals never even make it to birth and the rare ones that do all too frequently have [serious health] problems” (Boyce 42). Because of all of these facts, cloning should never even be considered on human beings. “Scientists estimate that fewer than a quarter of [cloned] newborns would survive without intensive care” (Boyce 43).
A very high probability of animal clones having all sorts of problems including poorly developed lungs and failing hearts, to grossly enlarged placentas and misshapen heads exist in all cloning attempts. Any attempts to clone a human with today’s technology would almost always produce a child with some sort of defect, whether major or minor. “Many [cloned animal] newborns have poorly developed lungs. And cattle have been born with deformed heads” (Boyce 42). Scientists say that they see some sort of genetic problem almost every time they clone and they do not know what is wrong with the cloning process, or why the cl...
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... not have enough room to develop in the uterus. Cloned animals have nearly always had some sort of obvious defect, and the ones that do not look normal almost always are not really normal. Also, there are 30,000 genes and the chances are extremely small that an egg cell would reprogram all of these genes correctly (Kolata 1). As a result, the clones are not normal. Because of all of this, cloning should be made illegal.
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Works Cited
Boyce, Nell. “Multiplicity Perils. A Human is Likely To Be Cloned and Soon. Is It Worth the Risk?” U.S. News & World Report 19 Mar 2001: 42-43.
Griffith, Victoria. “Scientists To Lend Weight To Attack On Human Cloning.” Financial Times 28 Mar 2001: 6.
Kolata, Gina. “Researchers Find Big Risk of Defect in Cloning Animals.” New York Times 25 Mar 2001: 1.
Josefson, Deborah. “Scientists Plan Human Cloning Clinic in the United States.” British Medical Journal 10 Feb 2001: 315.
McPherson, Coco. “Creation Myths.” The Village Voice 13 Feb 2001: 12.
“Why Not Human Clones?” The Christian Century 21 Feb 2001: 5.
Zitner, Aaron. “House Sets the Stage for Debate on the Cloning of Humans.” The Los Angeles Times 25 Mar 2001: A.20.
Even though natural born animals present a higher survival rate, cloned sheep and cows show different results. Even if the cloned cows and sheep show a positive sign of survival, most of the cloned animals’ die either in the womb or after the clone exits the womb. (Anthes 63). Through this example, death dominates the choices of these cloned animals, and scientists continue the experiments for the benefits of humans. By focusing on human needs, the scientists pretend that animal welfare means absolutely nothing, but animals deserve safety just like humans. If scientists truly believe that cloning meets moral standards, than how come scientists cannot find a more effective way to decrease the failure rate of
"(261)". We can not undo what has been discovered and we must ensure that all countries involved with cloning form a committee to monitor the uses of this technology to ensure that it is used in the best interest of mankind. Works Cited Bishop, Michael J. - "The 'Bishop'" The "Enemies of Promise" The Presence of Others. C Comp. Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruskiewicz.
McGee, Glenn, (2001). Primer on Ethics and Human Cloning. ActionBioscience.org. Retrieved October 3, 2004, from: http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/mcgee.html
“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.
successful clones often have problems with their body and are subject to a short lifespan ridden with health problems. This hurts the person or animal cloned rather than to help them, making cloning an immoral
Brannigan, C. Michael. Ethical Issues in Human Cloning. New York: Seven Bridges Press, Chatham House Publishers, 2001.
Postrel, Virginia. “Should Human Cloning Be Allowed? Yes, Don’t Impede Medical Progress.” In Dynamic Argument. Ed. Robert Lamm and Justin Everett. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. 420-23.
Scientist clones human embryos, and creates an ethical challenge. New York Times. October 26, 1993: A1.
8. Pellegrino, Edmund D., “Human Cloning and Human Dignity.” The President’s Council on Bioethics. 22 July 2007
In order to strongly argue against cloning, there must be an understanding of its process and what exactly it is. Simply stated, a clone is a duplicate just like a photocopy. A good example of such “copies” that occur are identical twins, which are duplicates of each other. “The first step of DNA cloning is to isolate a complete gene and is to chromosomal sequences and then to gradually begin flaking the chromosomal sequences of a single DAN molecule. Then the DNA clone can be electronically labeled and used as a probe to isolate the chromosomal sequences from a collection of different types of genes, which should contain cloned sequences that would represent the whole gene. This action will produce new sets of cloned cells identical to the mother cell. The new set of cells are isolated and likewise the simplified process is repeated all over again until the cells form a complete organ. In order to produce a complete organism the DNA must be altered in a variety of way to come out with the finished product to be the complete organism.” In simple terms, a cell is taken from a donor woman. Then an unfertilized egg is taken from a second woman. The DNA from the cell is removed and transferred to the egg. The egg is then implanted into a surrogate mother. The resulting baby is genetically identical to the original donor.
First of all, “Australia’s first cloned sheep appeared to be healthy and energetic the day she died, during the autopsy they could not find the cause (Castro, 2005).” There are many risks to cloning and you are seldom able to identify the cause of their death. “More than 90% of cloning attempts fail (Human Genome Program, 2006).” Most cloned animals died mysteriously even before they were born or when they were very young, so there is hardly any information on how clones age. Clones may be born with a normal looking body but may have internal functioning problems. “Cloned animals tend to have more compromised immune function and higher rates of infection, tumor growth, and other disorders (Human Genome Program, 2006).” There are many risks of cloning and a major factor is genetic differences.
2) Annas, George J. “Why We Should Ban Human Cloning,” The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 339, no. 2 (July 9, 1998), pp. 118-125.
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...
Human cloning is dangerous. It is estimated that between 95 and 98 percent of cloning experiments have failed (Genetics and Society). These downfalls to cloning are in the form of miscarriages and stillbirths (Genetics and Society). Cloned human beings also run the risk of having severe genetic abnormalities. Children cloned from adult DNA would, in a sense, already have “old” genes. These children’s main problem would be developing and growing old too quickly. This includes arthritis, appearance, and organ function. Since the chance of having a child with mental and physical problems is so much higher than that of a normally conceived child, cloning should be illegal.
Wachbroit, Robert. The. “Human Cloning Isn’t as Scary as it Sounds.” The Washington Post, 2 March 1997.