The Medical and Ethical Perspectives of Human Cloning

The Medical and Ethical Perspectives of Human Cloning

In our modern day world, the technology of genetic engineering and human cloning for the use of asexual reproduction has reached a point to where we must ask ourselves if it is a good practice for medical purposes, or if it presents issues of ethical and moral concern. Human cloning is a very cmplex process; it is very multilayered in the promises and threats that are suggested by scientists (Kolata 8). In the basic definition, cloning is accomplished by removing the nucleus of a mature, unfertilized egg and replacing it with a specialized cell from an adult organism. The nucleus taken contains most of the hereditary material from the original human source, and it develops from the human source it was taken from. This process makes it possible for scientists, or geneticists, to reproduce unlimited amounts of duplicates, which are known as clones (Pence: Flesh 18). Human cloning has reached a point wher the ethical and moral values have not been considered, and we have not fully learned and understood the negative consequences of such a new and overwhelming technology. There are, however, individual benefits of using genetic engineering for medical purposes. Such purposes include gene therapy and asexual reproduction. The use of genetic engineering in our society is viewed differently in two very arguable ways. Scientists, bioethicists, doctors, lawyers, professors, and authors join in the debate over human cloning and its medical benefits versus moral and ethnical concern.

Cloning and genetic engineering ahve been ideas that scientists have explored for a long time. "Cloning first came to public attention roughly thirty years ago, following the s...

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