Ethics of Cloning

Ethics of Cloning

Cloning has been going on for decades now, although for most people "cloning" wasn't a part of their everyday vocabulary until about 4 years ago. Scientists have been cloning embryotic cells for about 30 years. In 1970 Dr. John B. Gurdon from the U.K. cloned a frog by transplanting the cell of a tadpole into a frog egg. That was a major scientific breakthrough; the next step was to produce a clone from an adult cell.

For about 30 years nothing major happened. Then, after more than 271 tries before the process was successful, in July of 1996 Dolly was born. The sheep was cloned from an adult cell by Dr. Wilmut and his team. Dolly was in newspapers, on TV's and in magazines across the entire world. She, to this day, is probably the most famous sheep ever. Dolly was the beginning of something amazing yet so debatable. Some people have hope that one day we can actually clone humans for purposes like giving unfertile parents a chance to raise a baby, bringing "back" the dead, etc. Other people believe that science is going too far and we are "playing God."

Cloning humans is very possible with our technology, the only thing that is stopping this procedure is the law. Dr. Richard Seed, a fertility specialist, claims that he can and will clone a human by the year 2001. He says the only reason he hasn't yet is because he doesn't have the funds, but says that someone out there does have the funds and will pay whatever it takes to have themselves or someone else cloned. Seed says that he will go to Mexico to do the procedure since it's illegal in the United States. No one knows whether or not Seed will go through with his plans for sure, but what we do know is that he has the knowledge and is very capable of cloning. "We are going to become one with God. We are going to have almost as much knowledge and almost as much power as God," (Richard Seed, National Public Radio 1/6/98), says Seed.

Cloning raises alot of ethical, moral and religious issues. Standing at a religious viewpoint, cloning is playing with nature just a little too much. For instance, some christians think cloning is "getting rid of God's plan." God created each and every one of us, and if we took things into our own hands it would be betraying Him.