The Dignity of Cloning
Cloning is just one of the new ways that modern medicine is pushing the boundaries into uncharted moral waters. Cloning can be divided into two main groups by its purpose; therapeutic, which looks into the generation of body parts for transplants, and reproductive, which is cloning for the sake of replicating an entire organism. The main method of cloning mammals is called somatic cell nuclear transfer, where the DNA from a cell of an existing organism is put into a donor egg whose nucleus has been taken out. The major question that surrounds this process and the idea of replicating an organism is whether or not it detracts from human dignity.
According to the Catholic Church, cloning is immoral on many bases. Firstly, even the experimentation of cloning is seen as immoral, since, in the process of creating a viable clone, hundreds of embryos simply do not work. In the case of Dolly, the first successfully cloned sheep, she was the only survivor of 277 attempts. Statistics like this show how scientists are playing “fast and loose” with living embryos, which is unacceptable for Catholic teaching. The Catholic Church is also against the fact that, in therapeutic cloning, only a part of the new organism is “harvested”, and the remaining parts are destroyed. This raises Catholic objections on the grounds of playing God by creating and destroying life. This goes back to one of the temptations presented to Adam and Eve, “You will be like gods” (Genesis 3:5).
On the account of reproductive cloning, the Catholic Church has a whole new set of reasons relating to how it is immoral. With the advancements in cloning it is said by some that it will be possible to engineer a genetically superior human being. The problems with this are evident in the fact that an engineered child would have been created in our image, instead of the image of God. It is therefore arrogant of us to say that we can direct the evolution of humanity better than God.
Proponents of cloning raise many points in how, specifically therapeutic cloning, can advance knowledge and even lead to cures for some diseases. For example, theoretically, a liver cell could be used to grow a new, healthy liver for a transplant. The same could be said for kidneys, or organs that are not currently transplantable. Genetic diseases, such as cystic fibrosis can be better handled with answers to the genetic puzzle that cloning could provide.
Kevin T. Fitzgerald divided potential scenarios for using cloning technology into three categories: "Producing a clone in order to save the life of an individual who requires a transplant; making available another reproductive option for people who wish to have genetically related children, but face physical or chr...
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.
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.
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 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.
Cloning is, and always has been an extremely contentious topic. To some, the ethical complications surrounding it, are far more promiscuous than what scientists and medical experts currently acknowledge. Cloning is a general term that refers to the process in which an organism, or discrete cells and genes, undergo genetic duplication, in order to produce an identical copy of the original biological matter. There are two main types of artificial cloning; reproductive and therapeutic, both of which present their respective benefits and constraints. This essay aims to discuss the various differences between the two processes, as well as the ethical issues associated with it.
Brannigan, C. Michael. Ethical Issues in Human Cloning. New York: Seven Bridges Press, Chatham House Publishers, 2001.
How should we think about cloning as philosophers and feminists? Reproducing by cloning is not, in itself, morally inferior to reproducing by human sexual reproduction. Moral criticism of cloning in itself rests on condemnation of cloning's "unnaturalness" or "impiety," but this kind of criticism should not persuade non-believers. In this paper, cloning is evaluated in two phases. First, some hypothetical situations involving private choices about cloning are examined within a liberal framework. From this individualistic perspective, cloning appears no more morally problematic than is sexual reproduction. A liberal feminist may welcome the possibility of human cloning, as expanding the range of reproductive options open to women. The second phase argues for a shift in framework of analysis to get a more complete evaluation of the ethical implications of human cloning, including questions of distributive justice and the ideology of reproduction.
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.
Scientists have no problem with the ethical issues cloning poses, as they claim the technological benefits of cloning clearly outweigh the possible social consequences, not to mention, help people with deadly diseases to find a cure. Jennifer Chan, a junior at the New York City Lab School, said, "?cloning body organs will help save many patients' lives," she said. "I think that cloning is an amazing medical breakthrough, and the process could stop at cloning organs--if we're accountable, it doesn't have to go any further." This argument seems to be an ethical presentation of the purpose of cloning. However, most, if not all scientists agree that human cloning won?t stop there. While cloning organs may seem ethical, cloning a human is dangerous. Still, scientists argue that the intentions of cloning are ethical. On the other hand, there are many who disagree with those claims. According to those from a religious standpoint, it is playing God, therefore, should be avoided. From a scientific standpoint it is also very dangerous, as scientists are playing with human cells which, if done wrong, can lead to genetic mutations that can either become fatal to the clone, or cause it severe disabilities. This information does, in fact, question the moral of the issue. If cloning is unsafe and harmful, what is the point?
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).
"Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry." The President's Council on Bioethics Washington, D.C. N.p., July-Aug. 2002. Web.
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).