Cloning :: essays papers

CloningCloning is the process of creating a genetic duplicate of anindividual. Since the February 1997 announcement of the birth ofDolly, a sheep cloned by Ian Wilmut, cloning research has increasedconsiderably. Cloning populace has recently become much more of apossibility in society than it was days ago. Scientists are on theedge of a huge breakthrough in the field of tender cloning, and societymust ask itself whether or not it should be allowed. M all argumentscan be made for and against human cloning, but since it is unethicaland would take away individuality and disrupt social values, thepractice of cloning humans is one that government should ban andsociety should not accept.Proponents of human cloning may argue that it is just a logicaland inevitable advance in science research and technology. It is,however, too risky for human subjects. At the present time, thegeneral consensus of the public is against human cloning.(Fitzgerald 37) Within a few years time, however, the medicalpossibilities of human cloning may be attractive enough to changepublic opinion. Research on human cloning would involve hugerisks for the initial clones, because any experiments in humancloning would eventually have to be carried out on human beings.Human cloning is unethical because the risks of this practice greatly outdo the benefits. The technique that produced Dolly the sheep wassuccessful in only 1 of 277 attempts. If this technique were attemptedin humans, it would risk miscarriages in the mother and severedevelopmental problems in the child. Standard medical practice wouldnever allow the use of any drug or device with such little study andwithout much supererogatory animal research. (National Bioethics AdvisoryCommission) The actual risks of physical harm to the cloned childcannot be certain without conducting experiments on human beings. Thisin itself is unethical because no one knows what pull up stakes happen and thechild is in danger because one does not know what is going to happen,and one ispossibly leading to a child who could be modify and havedevelopmental difficulties. (Professor John Robertson)Human cloning would violate a persons individuality and take awaya childs identity. Cloned children would see themselves not as aperson, but as an object that their parents could discard becauseof imperfection. A family is no longer a genuine family.Children should be valued for who they are, not according to howclosely thy stir their parents expectations. If a child werecloned, his life would already have been lived by another human