Overview
The current issue facing societies around the world is human-animal hybrids experiments. These experiments are viewed in two lights, positive and negative. The positive of having these tests are that scientists could rid the world of diseases. However on the other hand people see these studies as inhumane and detrimental to everyone’s well being. This paper will be broken down into 6 areas including (1) a brief history of hybrid experiments dating within the decade, (2) a view of the stakeholders in the issue at hand, (3) how people would interact with humans receiving these treatments, (4) cultural and ethical considerations, (5) problems still at hand, and (6) a conclusion.
History
Humans have always loved to mix and combine things weather it is for looks, tastes, and stories. These combinations have always been seen as an improvement until recently. Medical breakthroughs in the cloning industry have been raising more ethical questions than when it initially started. The main issue was playing God. The new issue now is where we draw the line. As of 2003 the first human-animal embryo was created in China at the Shanghai Second Medical University. The creation was a human-rabbit embryo. However the embryo was destroyed before stem cells and research could be collected and studied.
In 2004 another experiment was created in Rochester Minnesota at the Mayo Clinic. The clinic was the first to create pigs that used human blood in place of their own. In 2005, two more hybrids are created the first being a mouse with human brain cells and the second is a feline-human protein hybrid. These hybrids are being created to fight and cure cancers and diseases including Parkinson and Alzheimer’s disease. 2007 and 2008, sheep ...
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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.
According to ProCon.org, in 2010, there were 1,134,693 reported animal testing subjects. However, this statistic fails to tell the whole story. Reported animal test subjects account for only between five and fifteen percent of the total amount of animals used in test labs (“Animal Testing”). However, according to In Defense of Animals, or IDA, the United States federal laws only mandate the number of “warm-blooded vertebrae animals used in science” to be counted and reported. Based on this federal law it is estimated that twenty-eight million animals are used annually in American test labs alone (“Frequently Asked Questions”). In 2007, slightly less than a half million animals were used by the United States Department of Defense. Even with growing evidence showing the dangers of animal testing, America continues to implement these processes. In May 2013, the United States Coast Guard went as far as to ignore a Congressional order to begin to scale back the amount of animal t...
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.
Imagine if your pet was getting experimented on for a product you might buy in the future. Would anyone really want that product, your pet was in pain because of it? Animals are getting experimented on for products to get released to the public. Some companies are using vitro researching to test their products but not enough companies are using vitro as their form of testing products. Synthetic skin could reduce the amount of animals getting tested on everyday for companies to release new products to the public. Animals are getting experimented on everyday.
Matthews, R.A.J. "Medical Progress Depends on Animal Models - Doesn't It?" Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 101.2 (2008): 95-98. Print.
Other animals like, cats, mice, hamsters, rabbits, pigs, and sheep are also tested in labs, “animal research has played a vital role in virtually every major medical advance of the last century – for both human and animal health. From antibiotics to blood transfusions, from dialysis to organ-...
The concept of using animal organs in human beings is not a new one. On...
In modern society, animal experimentation has triggered a controversy; consequently, vast amount of protests have been initiated by the animal rights community. Although these organizations have successfully broadcast their concerns toward animal experimentation, its application continues to survive. Sally Driscoll and Laura Finley inform that there remain fifty million to one-hundred million animals that experience testing or experimentation throughout the world on a yearly basis. But despite opposition, animal experimentation, the use of experiments on animals in order to observe the effects an unknown substance has on living creatures, serves multiple purposes. Those particular purposes are: research of the living body, the testing of products, and the advancement of medicine.
Although not as strictly addressed, there is still a schism when it comes to the matters of experimentation involving animals. Those in opposition of it see it as being against the will of the animal, because animals have no say in the matter. However, through animal experimentation there has been vast medical advances in hospitals and veterinarians , research has led to cures for various diseases that would normally take many more years to cure, and the use of animals is highly ethical considering what could be the alternative, although there is progress being made to change these measures. This is how animal experimentation is of use to society for humans and animals.
Experimenting on animals, to some, is important if humans want to continue with improving our medical advances (AMPEF 1).
Shaw, Myles. “Animal Cloning—How Unethical Is It?- Draft 1.” UTSA: WRC 1023, 3 Mar 2014. Print.
Our advancements in science have enabled us to create other things that we can test on, instead of harming innocent animals. Since experiments are cruel and expensive, “the world’s most forward-thinking scientists have moved on to develop and use methods for studying
"Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry." The President's Council on Bioethics Washington, D.C. N.p., July-Aug. 2002. Web.
One of the most unsettling experiments that is conducted includes taking organs from one species and transplanting them into another, which is known as xenotransplantation. The practice of genetic engineering in animals destroys the life of one animal to create specific, unnatural traits in another. Research has shown that people will only agree and accept the practice of animal experimentation when they think that the animals do not experience suffering. However, if the experiments were broadcast more publicly, this issue would not exist.