Man is quickly approaching the reality of cloning a human being. Once regarded as a fantastic vision dreamed up by imaginative novelists, the possibility of creating a person in the absence of sexual intercourse has crossed over the boundaries of science fiction and into our lives. While genetic engineering has helped improve the quality of life for many people, it poses many ethical and moral questions that few are prepared to answer.
The most current and volatile debate surrounding human cloning seemed to surface when the existence of Dolly, a clone-sheep, was announced on February 23, 1997 by Ian Wilmut and colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. The cloning technique, which had never been successfully performed in mammals before, involved transplanting the genes of an adult male sheep with a differentiated somatic cell and transferring them into a female sheep’s egg, of which the nucleus had been removed. Since Dolly contained the DNA of only one parent, she was deemed the “delayed” genetic twin of a single adult sheep (1). Since the spring of 1998, several other genetic clones have been announced, including the Massachusetts cell research firm’s claim of “designer cattle” and the talk of a cloned mouse in June (2). Skeptics wondered, if such animals as mice and sheep can be cloned, what frontiers remains except for…..us? Recent legislation by the Clinton Administration, following the announcement of Dolly’s birth put a ban on any funding whatsoever in support of science dictated toward human cloning. “Personally, I believe that human cloning raises deep concerns, given our cherished concepts of faith and humanity”, the President said in a June 1997 national radio address (3)…
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… of doing so, and the prospect of cloning a human being is an issue which must be carefully weighed by scientists and legislators alike. It is an event that can shape the history of mankind, but it is also an event that can create history in itself.
Works Cited
(1) http://bioethics.gov/pubs/cloning1/executive.htm
(2) http://www.reason. com/biclone.html
(3) http://www.reson.com/biclone.html
(4) http://www.reason.com/opeds/eibert.html
(5) http://www.nejm.org/content/1998/0338/0013/0905.asp#tref-6
(6) http://www.nejm.org/content/1998/0338/0013/0905.asp#ref-6
(7) “Cloning: Legal, Medical, Ethical, and Social Issues”. Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Health and Environment of the Committee on Commerce.
Serial n. 105-70. February 12, 1998. Pp. 14
(8) http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/articles/0,3266,17681,00.html
Free Argumentative and Free Persuasive Essay – Human Cloning and Family Values Cloning Argumentative Persuasive Essays
Free Persuasive Essays – Cloning and Family Values As an individual person and human being, we are raised with family values. We are taught about the value of marriage, parenthood and respect. Cloning will bring the demise of those values. With today’s technology and cultural diversity in America these values are rapidly diminishing. “Changes in the broader culture make it now vastly more difficult to express common and respectful understanding of sexuality, procreation, nascent life, family, and the meaning of motherhood, fatherhood, and the links between the generations” (Kass and Wilson 7). Proponents of cloning believe parents who want to clone a child, either to provide transplant for a dying child or to replace that of a lost one, should have this right. Little do they know that the sacrificial benefit to the creator is by far cruelty and evil. This is a violation of an individual sanctity of life. We, as humans, have the capability to reason. Why are we not seeing the disease that we might unleash and not be able to control? Sterile individuals may look at cloning as a prescription to his or her suffering. What about the unborn child, does anyone consider it? Even with a life threatening disease, can we as humans cloning justify the moral implications? To harvest humans for their organs, solely for personal gain is inhumane. Should we believe that it is right to bear a child purely for its organs? What will the effect be on that cloned child? The devastation of his or her psychological state would be detrimental. For all he knows, he is a child that was brought to this world simply used as a commodity like cattle. Will society treat the cloned child with the same respect as the original? It is an answer we cannot justify. But we are soon to learn if human cloning will be allowed to continue.