Human Cloning and Congress

The case against cloning, including therapeutic cloning, has mainly been argued on grounds of morality. Opponents have warned that creating embryos through cloning for the purpose of research (with the full intention of destroying them later) is a breathtakingly radical enterprise. For the first time in history, human lives will be created for the explicit purpose of exploitation. Such considerations have led activist Jeremy Rifkin to opine that the cloning debate is to the 21st century what the slavery debate was to the 19th. Unfortunately, we live in a time of widespread and extreme non-judgmentalism, an era when many Americans simply do not respond to moral arguments in public policy debates.

This technology, according to scientists, could foster the ability to cure any disease, illness, or injury, but at what cost? Opponents of stem cell research believe that the practice of embryonic study and culture is immoral, while proponents suggest that this technology is necessary for the advancement of medical research. In 2001, then President George W. Bush quickly sided with those believing the research to be immoral. During his primetime address, he advocated only to allow research on cell lines already in existence. Much of this side of the argument is based on the idea that human eggs are fertilized with sperm to create an embryo, and then destroyed to harvest the stem cells within the blastocyst.

National Academy of Sciences: Human Cloning The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) made headlines when it issued a broadside that would, if followed by Congress, grant an open-ended license for biotech researchers to clone human life. True, the NAS recommended that Congress ban "reproductive" cloning, that is, the use of a cloned embryo to produce a born baby. But it also urged that human cloning for purposes of experimentation--often called "therapeutic" or "research" cloning--remain unimpeded by legal restrictions. Such a public policy would permit virtually unlimited human cloning--so long as all the embryos created thereby were destroyed rather than implanted in a woman's womb. The recommendation from a well-known scientific organization did not appear at this particular time by coincidence.

This idea that causes violation of religion and morality in addition to the physical and psychological damage, I stand against it. Some believe that the solution to some serious diseases is in cloning and this is not accurate. We have scientifically proven that the process of producing new cells healthy rather than diseased represent a major threat to human life care. For example, according to New Yo... ... middle of paper ... ... the same disease to all the cells that will reproduce the same as those of the cell. This is exactly what happened to the sheep Dolly, where - as we mentioned previously unknown - it was hit by arthritis and the mother cell found to be infected with it as well (William, 2008).

Under S. 1602, researchers could clone embryos and experiment on them without limit; they would violate the law only if they failed to throw away the embryos afterwards. What does human cloning have to do with abortion? Quite a bit, because bills like S. 1602 would enforce a ban on "cloning a human being" by mandating the destruction of all cloned human embryos. This would mark the first time Congress has ever declared that human embryos are not humans and are worthy only of destruction.

(3) In an Illinois Republican’s judgment, “It is critical that both state and federal lawmakers look carefully at upcoming legislation to ban cloning to ensure that scientific advances which may sure fatal diseases are protected. (2) Congressmen observes, that no one really knows what discoveries might yet be made in treating debilitating diseases as the human cloning issue is aired and determined by congress. (2) Florida introduced the banning of cloning, but then quickly withdrew because it would have banned cloning of humans and the cloning of DNA. Many do not want cloning to be totally banned because it is important to innovative scientific research, which may spin off from the cloning technique. (2) Cloning for ultimate medical purposes should be contained to animals and agriculture, and not be extended to humans.

Science Today and Human Cloning Nowadays, we are being constantly fed with the prophecy that molecular biology is the next revolutionary "wave" replacing information technology which has changed the way we live in the past 50 years. The past decade has seen scientists making significant breakthroughs in this field to start the current biotechnology hype. One defining achievement was the cloning of a sheep named Dolly by Dr. Ian Wilmut of Roslin Institute in 1996. This historic success debunked previous biology myth that adult cells have lost their totipotent abilities exhibited during early-stage embryonic stage. Now, it is possible for us to use the cells from an adult organism to create another genetically identical organism.

(3) The methods of harvesting the embryonic stem cells results in killing a living embryo, but some of these stem cells are produced by cloning. Cloning creates great fear in hearts and minds of the human race as the consequences of its use are unknown. The stem ... ... middle of paper ... ... of this country. Life is precious, and life is not expendable. Let us not trade one life for another.

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World illustrates a perfect society: “community, identity, stability” (Huxley 7). This superb environment, however, is only achieved through the dehumanization of each individual. The world is run by world-controllers, a powerful oligarchy, whom have successfully brainwashed, or conditioned, children for the sole purpose of controlling their minds (Biderman 549). In result, individuals have lost their ability to think and act for themselves. Children are stripped of human rights, even before conditioning, by being a product of governmental test tube reproduction.

Instead arguments are illustrated through weak metaphors and unqualified conclusions. In Biotech Century: Playing Ecological Roulette with Mother Nature’s Designs, Jeremy Rifkin gives us an example of how a doomsayer strikes fear in the hearts of people around the world without using a single bit of concrete evidence or a complete logical thought. If studied closely the comparisons and arguments Rifkin creates, further illustrate that many arguments against scientific discovery are “born of fear.” The first metaphor in Rifkin’s article suggests that genetic alterations are tantamount to a, “Second Genesis.” (Lunsford 245) First, the Genesis was the beginning or ori... ... middle of paper ... ...er and disease? Perhaps this is gods way of making right all the mistakes made throughout the course of evolution? Somewhere in evolution humans developed a gene that made them more violent.