With human cloning becoming a near-term prospect, we are brought face-to-face with the most basic ethical questions of life. Opinions differ widely as to whether human cloning should be prohibited.
True, human cloning clearly has much to offer. By using cells from the patient’s own body to grow organs to replace diseased parts, the problem of rejection can be avoided. This might prove useful, to illustrate, in fighting leukemia through bone marrow transplants. But what about making an identical copy of a human being?
Ian Wilmut, who created Dolly the sheep, found the idea offensive. Professor Hank Greely at Stanford also finds the suggestion deeply disturbing. For one thing, the technology is far from perfect. There may be lots of miscarriages. There will also be deformed clones. What should we do with them? Should we simply keep the healthy clones and just kill off the ones with deformed bodies or defective brains? That, I am afraid, would offend the religious beliefs of a great many people. Even if the technology is perfect, who can guarantee no one will misuse it for evil purposes? To clone a Hitler or to produce new class divisions, with some designed to lead and others designed to serve?
Therefore, I am strongly opposed to human cloning for reproductive purposes. The government should enact laws to prohibit it. Non-reproductive cloning, on the other hand, should be encouraged. It may mean hope to those who are waiting desperately for organs for transplantation to save their lives. If used wisely the technology may eventually free humans from many kinds of suffering that today seem unavoidable.
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ReplyDeleteIt seems that scientists nowadays need to learn more about ethical issues.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, cloning people for organ is still a bit cruel, so it will be contentious. Can you clone one person , take "its" organ out of "its" body and abandon the body left?
There is another point that cloning just means create creatures with the same genes as the previous ones, but it does not mean the cloned one will be totally the same as the previous ones in personality, preference, etc. Thus ,even if you clone a Einstein, he may not love physics and become a scientist.
I don't think we should even think of cloning anything much less human. It is simply evil and going against nature. Why should we satisfy someone's curiosity or vanity to make copies of their pets or themselves. They may unleash untold misery to mankind by subverting morality and ethics. The scientific community should guard against rogue scientists from doing cladenstine experiment on cloning. By all means scientists should continue to do medical research on stem cell to find possible cures for the dreadful diseases mankind is faced with.
ReplyDeleteCloning is a battle between athics and too advanced technology. Anyway it is against the nature rule and regarded evil by many relagions. However, the organ supply shortage is still the main reason that obstructs transplantation. There are too many people dying on the way waiting for the organ resources.And no one seems to be willing to accept an animal organ. It is not only a matter of ethics but also human psychological struggles. We only hope that the scientists will find ways to solve this problem soon in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe cloning is a problem that involves the ethic and science problem. It is really a hard choice between ethic and science. Therefore, there should be perfect constitution to control the cloning and make the biology science have adequate development at the same time.
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