The Ethical Implications Of Cloning Full-Term Human Beings Argumentative Essay Examples

On the fifth of July 1996 the first cloned sheep was born, they called her ‘Dolly’ and she sparked off one of the hottest debates of the twentieth century, the debate over the nature of and consequences of cloning a human being, thus starting the idea of bio-ethics.
Science furthering the lifespan of the human race has been at the core of scientific research since the dawn of time, organ donor-ship, organ transplants, advances in medical technology, like in vitro fertilisation, what seemed like science fiction to people of the past are now commonplace, everyday affair for those living today.
It can be argued that humans play god every day, that even saving a human life with an organ transplant or just a life saving operation is not natural and is against a plan designed by a higher power.
In our time cloning people is no longer science fiction. Yesterday’s science fiction becomes tomorrow’s science fact.
The difference between cloning human cells for research and organ replacement as opposed to the cloning of full term human beings is negligible in terms of scientific progress but in terms of spiritual and philosophical points of view the two are miles apart.
Is humanity going too far with its scientific progress, is the power create other humans, power reserved only for the god of men? Or is it part of the human design to be curious about the creation of life, is it natural for people to want to overcome the bonds of mortality and push the limits of humanity to the very bring, trying to become god?
Can human beings really be relied upon to draw a line in regards to ethics, can they be trusted to use cloning for good as opposed to nefarious means, such as war or profit or both?
In vitro fertilisation was the first step towards the artificial creation of man and naturally people were horrified by this. People were also horrified when animals were cloned and when cloned animal organs were used in human bodies, but they got over it pretty quick when it saved human lives.
Now it’s relatively normal, the exact same could be said of cloning in the near future. All these scientific advances seem scary and strange and have an instant ‘yuck’ factor especially in terms of humans with cloned/non-cloned animal organs transplanted inside of them but they’re simply tools creating by science in the effort of benefiting mankind.
Picture it this way, if per se in vitro fertilisation is the only way to create life, a couple for example where both parties are infertile, it should be done as opposed to those people not being allowed to carry on their DNA and if giving a human animal organs is the only way of saving a life it should be used because allowing them to die without considering that option is not ethical.
Cloning on the other hand has been slated by the religious community because it could destroy the need for marriage, because if cloning were possible we would no longer need men and women to make life, you could just make a copy of yourself as a child. A human clone would basically be an exact copy, physically and genetically of the original.
Janet Allen Ethics/Environmental Activist (Director wild blue planet) Claim that every new technology has its good and its bad points, light and dark side. Every ‘good technology’ created to benefit man can be used in a bad way by an evil person that does the opposite.
If you take a good technology and use it in a good way then it’s different but that is in a perfect world.
Before cloning we believed that all cells were locked into whatever they were i.e. muscle tissue is always muscle tissue, bone will always be bone, but all cells had the blueprints to make a full body. This idea was changed as we realised we could change the nature of cells to behaviour like sperm or eggs.
The opposing view to the scientific view that life is a chemical process is the view of life as a ‘miracle’. The nature of scientists from this view are that they are not to be trusted, they are viewed as immoral, they play at becoming god and this will lead to inevitable disaster.
On the other hand cloning farm animals has its obvious necessity in that it is useful in terms of ‘growing’ more food. Dolly the sheep was the first cloned sheep but we could have entire industries created on the backs of cloned cows for meat, it could solve world hunger.
If we could clone vegetation, decreasing the time in which it took to grow or even genetically enhance it so that it could survive in harsher conditions, possibly turning baron wastelands into fields of crops.
When Dolly the sheep was first cloned in 1996, Bill Clinton instantaneously saw it necessary to put a team together to discuss the bio-ethical ramifications this could have on the globe. The reason he did this was that he understood that the nature of cloning is not just as a scientific breakthrough but in fact it presents an incredible ethical, spiritual and philosophical philosophical dilemma for the world over.
Dr Alan DeCherney (Chief Editor Journal of Fertility and Sterility) - The idea is that scientists should only do research that will definitely benefit mankind, only do perfect research, any other research is pointless, scientists should in theory never do research that isn’t necessarily going to benefit mankind, if that were the case we’d all still be living in caves. There would be no scientific progress if scientists didn’t do research even if they weren’t one hundred percent sure it would eventually benefit humanity.
As soon as Dolly was born, cloning humans was banned in a majority of first world countries but the scary thing is it won’t necessarily stop other countries like India or Malaysia who aren’t seen as great world powers because of their lack of nuclear weapons using cloning as a way of being taken more seriously on the global stage.
It will never be done in countries like America because there would be too much on the line it would destroy the career of the doctor/scientist who attempted it, they simply have too much to lose, the risk is too high.
However, cloning is seen as a practical alternative to in vitro fertilisation for a couple that is infertile creating a child cloned from their DNA. Although in vitro fertilisation is very expensive costing around eight thousand dollars per session and not very effective with a success rate of only thirty to thirty-five percent for women under thirty-five, which decreases as the age of the candidate is increased.
When you understand that it’s unlikely to be used often, it’s less scary. The same principles could be applied to cloning.
Lots of the controversy for cloning and in vitro fertilization comes from the fact that when animal’s clones are made or artificially impregnated lots of embryos die, but who cares about embryos?
Some people namely the fundamentalist religious community view embryos as having as much relevance as full term human beings, that even though they’re without consciousness they are the beginning of life and all life is sacred.
The result of a successfully cloning of one person could result in many embryos being wasted which in their view would count as people killed. However it’s the exact same situation in terms of in vitro fertilization but nobody objects to that but we’re not creating life from scratch, we’re just helping it along.
Cloning today is possible but we should not be using it because it raises too many questions on the nature of what in fact a human being is. Is a cloned baby just a machine made of bio data, programmed to follow the exact same set of subroutines a real person follows? It questions the nature of what makes a real person different from a clone, is a human; flesh and blood containing a soul or is it just a robot made of meat? Some people argue cloning undermines people’s individuality, it challenges the nature of identity, how can you be you if someone else is also you?
Dr Nigel Cameron, Chairman Director, Centre for European Bio-ethics and Public Policy, explains that cloning has no place in a world dominated by religious belief, such as Christianity and Islam because they represent a watershed in our interference in human procreation. Cloning is not about aiding in human procreation but in fact supplanting it. We’re Photocopying/manufacturing people.
Rabbi Gabriel Elias - Religion dictates that an embryo is a life. Once we establish than an embryo is a life we should no power over it as humans don’t have the right to have power over life, man is thinking he can become a god but will eventually destroy himself because he is not god.
Janet Allen Ethics/Environmental Activist (Director wild blue planet) Worries that this science will be corrupted for the purposes of eugenics in an attempt to improve the human race by selected breeding. This entails the replication of characteristics that are deemed to be superior to a particular society (for instance blonde hair and blue eyes for the Nazis) for an entire population. Hitler wanted to use cloning as a way to strengthen the Arian race and saw Jewish people as a genetic pollutant which had to be expunged to purify and improve their race.
Hitler judged himself an expert in judging what was superior human traits and wanted to eliminate people that corrupted those traits, which lead to the deaths of six million Jews. This is obviously a great example of how a science like this can be misused or misconstrued. Science is knowledge, its technology, hip replacements can be misused. Cloning is not good or bad people are good or bad.
If used by unscrupulous corporations it could be very profitable but for the sale of organs but it would be completely un-ethical.
For example, imagine using a brain-dead cloned person as an incubator for healthy human organs used in transplants. Or even creating a new body created to have your brain transplanted into it. This is invariable immoral but this horrific science fictions is on the horizon.
It would be immoral to kill people for their organs or steal them from a live person, that goes without saying and it would still be immoral to take an organ from your identical twin, even though genetically speaking you are the same person. However is it immoral to have the ability to kill a clone you’ve had made to harvest their organs?
Technically they’re not a person but for your actions they would not have life (In the same regard as you wouldn’t have the right to kill your child and harvest their organs) but they will still have freewill and feel pain so that would still be murder as they would naturally still want to live. It all depends on definition though, they’re just meat robots but it changes the definition of being a person.
Cloning can be used to make new ears for burn victims. New organs can be grown from their tissue that their body will not reject. Thousands of people die every year because they can’t get an organ transplant because there aren’t enough organs, this will remedy that problem by simply growing new organs from the patients DNA.
Rabbi Gabriel Elias - Anything to save a human life or improve the quality of life is a valid use for cloning. You’re enhancing life not duplicating it, not creating it. In this circumstance god can be accredited as helping your endeavour to conquer nature but not in corrupting it by creating life.
Janet Allen Ethics/Environmental Activist (Director wild blue planet) says that cloning is essentially solving the symptoms of a disease as opposed to the root cause, which is poor diet, pollution, chemicals in our food supply, with every problem you solve you create another.
The current view of the scientific community is opposition of cloning is just the product of fanatical naysayers and cloning is inevitable.
Rabbi Gabriel Elias - In vitro fertilization is helping a man and a woman have a child with god’s help it’s not making a person from scratch, you’re not encroaching on the territory of god. Can there be a technological advance that cures disease but does not affect what it means to be human or step on the toes of god? Genetic theory or gene therapy is there to help cure disease.
In terms of cloning it will take a long time before the scientific community gains our trust to have a technology this advance to use it in an ethical manor that will not impose on people’s rights but as it stands cloning is not immoral or unethical because it is just a science and because of that it has no agency so words like ‘moral’ or ‘ethical’ do not apply. Only how it is used if it is used can be described in such a way.
Human Cloning - Frankenstein Science (2010) Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R37R6AbPN6w
MacKinnon, Barbara. (2000) Human Cloning: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy
Smith, Wesley. J. (2013) The Coming Public Conflict Over Human Cloning. Retrieved from
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/01/the-coming-public-conflict-over-human-cloning