Arguments FOR Cloning Human Beings
Medical breakthroughs - Human cloning
technology is expected to result in several
miraculous medical breakthroughs. We may be able
to cure cancer if cloning leads to a better
understanding of cell differentiation. Theories exist
about how cloning may lead to a cure for heart
attacks, a revolution in cosmetic surgery, organs for
organ transplantation, and predictions abound about
how cloning technology will save thousands of lives.
Medical tragedies - Many people have suffered
accidental medical tragedies during their lifetimes. A
girl who needs a kidney, a burn victim, a girl born
with cosmetic deformities, a man who needs a liver,
a women who is infertile because of cancer, and a
father who lost his only son. All these people favor
cloning and want the science to proceed.
Bad parents - Did your parents destroy your life?
Did you never have a chance? Interestingly, human
cloning allows you the opportunity to participate in
choosing the parents for your clone.
A Child's right to be better than its parents - It's
been suggested that parents have a duty to see that
their children have better lives than they do. This
may mean making our children live longer, helping
them to be resistant to cancer, heart disease, any
familial diseases, and all the other problems that can
be cured using what we learn from human cloning
technology.
To take a step towards immortality - Human
cloning essentially means taking a human being's
DNA and reversing its age back to zero. Dr. Richard
Seed, one of cloning’s leading proponents, hopes
that cloning will help us understand how to reverse
DNA back to age 20 or whatever age we want to be.
Cloning would be a step towards a fountain of youth.
To be a better parent - Human cloning can improve
the parent-child relationship. Raising a clone would
be like having a child with an instruction manual.
You would have a head start on the needs and
talents of your child. We are not saying that a clone
would be a carbon copy with no individuality. Our
talents and desires are genetic, developmental, and
environmental. We would have a head start on
understanding the genetic component of a cloned
child.
Endangered species could be saved - Through
the research leading up to human cloning we will
perfect thetechnology to clone animals, and thus we
Source: www.humancloning.org
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could forever preserve endangered species,
including human beings. Animals and plants could
be cloned for medical purposes
To have a better sense of identity - If we had
some information about ourselves, perhaps we
could sooner or better discovery who we are. A
clone would have access to a tremendous amount of
information about his or her parent that could greatly
help in understanding one's psyche and physical
attributes. All of this information could provide a
better sense of identity.
Because the sick will demand it - Those resisting
human cloning research will probably find
themselves shouted down by the sick and the
maimed who desperately need such research.
Human cloning technology promises to cure many or
all incurable diseases and the moral weight of the
dying and infirm will undoubtedly sway the politicians
more than the arguments of the healthy, who often
remain ignorant of the potential of human cloning,
because they have never been motivated by
suffering to look desperately for a cure.
Arguments AGAINST Cloning Human Beings
SAFETY CONCERNS - The most frequently stated
argument against cloning is based on safety
concerns. The production of Dolly, the first cloned
sheep required at least 276 failed attempts. No one
knows why these attempts failed and why one
succeeded. Cloning presents different obstacles in
every species. Human cloning therefore could not
become a reality without extensive human
experimentation. Though 276 "failed" lambs may be
acceptable losses, the ethical implications of failed
or partially successful human experiments are
unacceptable.
TURNING HUMANS INTO A COMMODITY TO BE
BOUGHT AND SOLD - Cloning would encourage
the commodification of humans. Cloning would turn
procreation into a manufacturing process, where
human characteristics become added options and
children, objects of deliberate design. This process
of commodification needs to be actively opposed. It
produces no benefits and it undermines the very
basis of our established notions of human
individuality and dignity.
HUMAN DIVERSITY - Cloning would also disrespect
human diversity in ethnicity and ability. Though it is
not possible to produce exact copies of animals or
people, inherent in cloning is the desire to do so.
The process of cloning would necessarily increase
sameness, and eradicate genetic variety. A society
that supported cloning as an acceptable procreative
technique, would imply that variety is not important.
Especially in a multicultural nation like Canada,
where diversity and difference are of the essence,
any procedure that reduced our acceptance of
differences would be dangerous. It is clear from the
tensions that exist in our society that we should be
embracing processes that increase our appreciation
for the diversity of individuals, not working to remove
differences.
PERMANENT CHANGES TO THE GENE POOL The process of cloning would inevitably invite the
use of other genetic technologies, specifically
genetic manipulation of cloned embryos, and this
could result in permanent, heritable changes to the
human gene pool. Some scientists pretend that they
can predict which genes humans would be better off
without. However, there is no way to acquire the
genetic knowledge to make such a prediction
without experiments, which would have implications
for the next generation of humans. Such
experiments must not be done, since both the errors
and supposed successes of genetic manipulation
would be with humanity forever. Although the
Source: www.gene-watch.org
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potential applications of human genetic engineering
may appeal to some, the experimental nature of the
technique, and the permanence of the results, would
make it a highly dangerous invention.
THREAT OF EUGENICS - Cloning would allow for
eugenics. Eugenics is the attempt to improve human
beings, not by improving their economic, social, and
educational opportunities, but by altering the genes
with which they are born. Cloning would allow
scientists to begin with a known human (the person
to be cloned) and then "improve" it by modifying
specific traits. People who wanted to be cloned
could have themselves cloned only to be taller,
blonder, smarter. It would be impossible to embark
on human cloning without opening the door to
eugenics.
NATURAL PROCREATION AND EVOLUTION Ordinary procreation, whether it results in twins or
singletons, is an open-ended process that depends
on the random coming together of an egg and sperm
cell. Each new individual has a unique configuration
of genes which leads to an amazing range of human
variability. Cloning reduces the opportunity for
genetic surprise and growth among cloned humans,
limiting such future people to genetic configurations
that have been expressed before.