There are many ways in which in which human cloning is expected to benefit mankind. Below is a list that
is far from complete.
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Rejuvenation. Dr. Richard Seed, one of the leading proponents of human cloning technology,
suggests that it may someday be possible to reverse the aging process because of what we learn from
cloning.
Human cloning technology could be used to reverse heart attacks. Scientists believe that they may
be able to treat heart attack victims by cloning their healthy heart cells and injecting them into the
areas of the heart that have been damaged. Heart disease is the number one killer in the United
States and several other industrialized countries.
There has been a breakthrough with human stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can be grown to
produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged ones. Skin for burn victims, brain cells for
the brain damaged, spinal cord cells for quadriplegics and paraplegics, hearts, lungs, livers, and
kidneys could be produced. By combining this technology with human cloning technology it may be
possible to produce needed tissue for suffering people that will be free of rejection by their immune
systems. Conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart failure,
degenerative joint disease, and other problems may be made curable if human cloning and its
technology are not banned.
Infertility. With cloning, infertile couples could have children. Despite getting a fair amount of
publicity in the news current treatments for infertility, in terms of percentages, are not very
successful. One estimate is that current infertility treatments are less than 10 percent successful.
Couples go through physically and emotionally painful procedures for a small chance of having
children. Many couples run out of time and money without successfully having children. Human
cloning could make it possible for many more infertile couples to have children than ever before
possible.
Plastic, reconstructive, and cosmetic surgery. Because of human cloning and its technology the days
of silicone breast implants and other cosmetic procedures that may cause immune disease should
soon be over. With the new technology, instead of using materials foreign to the body for such
procedures, doctors will be able to manufacture bone, fat, connective tissue, or cartilage that matches
the patients tissues exactly. Anyone will able to have their appearance altered to their satisfaction
without the leaking of silicone gel into their bodies or the other problems that occur with present day
plastic surgery. Victims of terrible accidents that deform the face should now be able to have their
features repaired with new, safer, technology. Limbs for amputees may be able to be regenerated.
Breast implants. Most people are aware of the breast implant fiasco in which hundreds of thousands
of women received silicone breast implants for cosmetic reasons. Many came to believe that the
implants were making them ill with diseases of their immune systems. With human cloning and its
technology breast augmentation and other forms of cosmetic surgery could be done with implants
that would not be any different from the person's normal tissues.
Defective genes. The average person carries 8 defective genes inside them. These defective genes
allow people to become sick when they would otherwise remain healthy. With human cloning and
its technology it may be possible to ensure that we no longer suffer because of our defective genes.
Down's syndrome. Those women at high risk for Down's syndrome can avoid that risk by cloning.
Tay-Sachs disease. This is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder could be prevented by using
cloning to ensure that a child does not express the gene for the disorder
liver failure. We may be able to clone livers for liver transplants
kidney failure. We may be able to clone kidneys for kidney transplants
leukemia. We should be able to clone the bone marrow for children and adults suffering from
leukemia. This is expected to be one of the first benefits to come from cloning technology.
cancer. We may learn how to switch cells on and off through cloning and thus be able to cure
cancer. Scientists still do not know exactly how cells differentiate into specific kinds of tissue, nor
to they understand why cancerous cells lose their differentiation. Cloning, at long last, may be the
key to understanding differentiation and cancer.
cystic fibrosis. We may be able to produce effective genetic therapy against cystic fibrosis. Ian
Wilmut and colleagues are already working on this problem.
spinal cord injury. We may learn to grow nerves or the spinal cord back again when they are
injured. Quadriplegics might be able to get out of their wheelchairs and walk again. Christopher
Reeves, the man who played Superman, might be able to walk again.
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testing for genetic disease. Cloning technology can be used to test for and perhaps cure genetic
diseases.
The above list only scratches the surface of what human cloning technology can do for mankind. The
suffering that can be relieved is staggering. This new technology heralds a new era of unparalleled
advancement in medicine if people will release their fears and let the benefits begin. Why should another
child die from leukemia when if the technology is allowed we should be able to cure it in a few years time?
From e-mail to the Human Cloning Foundation it is clear that many people would support human
cloning in the following situations:
1) A couple has one child then they become infertile and cannot have more children. Cloning would enable
such a couple to have a second child, perhaps a younger twin of the child they already have.
2) A child is lost soon after birth to a tragic accident. Many parents have written the HCF after losing a baby
in a fire, car accident, or other unavoidable disaster. These grief stricken parents often say that they would
like to have their perfect baby back. Human cloning would allow such parents to have a twin of their lost
baby, but it would be like other twins, a unique individual and not a carbon copy of the child that was lost
under heartbreaking circumstances.
3) A woman who through some medical emergency ended up having a hysterectomy before being married or
having children. Such women have been stripped of their ability to have children. These women need a
surrogate mother to have a child of their own DNA, which can be done either by human cloning or by in
vitro fertilization.
4) A boy graduates from high school at age 18. He goes to a pool party to celebrate. He confuses the deep
end and shallow end and dives head first into the pool, breaking his neck and becoming a quadriplegic. At
age 19 he has his first urinary tract infection because of an indwelling urinary catheter and continues to
suffer from them the rest of his life. At age 20 he comes down with herpes zoster of the trigeminal nerve. He
suffers chronic unbearable pain. At age 21 he inherits a 10 million dollar trust fund. He never marries or has
children. At age 40 after hearing about Dolly being a clone, he changes his will and has his DNA stored for
future human cloning. His future mother will be awarded one million dollars to have him and raise him. His
DNA clone will inherit a trust fund. He leaves five million to spinal cord research. He dies feeling that
although he was robbed of normal life, his twin/clone will lead a better life.
5) Two parents have a baby boy. Unfortunately the baby has muscular dystrophy. They have another child
and it's another boy with muscular dystrophy. They decide not to have any more children. Each boy has over
20 operations as doctors attempt to keep them healthy and mobile. Both boys die as teenagers. The childless
parents donate their estate to curing muscular dystrophy and to having their boys cloned when medical
science advances enough so that their DNA can live again, but free of muscular dystrophy.
Reference this page as: Human Cloning Foundation. "The Benefits of Human Cloning." Internet
http://www.humancloning.org/benefits.htm , 1998. This page can be plagiarized, copied, or redistributed
freely in order to support human cloning and its technology. If it is convenient to give credit to the Human
Cloning Foundation, please do so.
Primer on Ethics and Human Cloning
February 2001
By Glenn McGee
Human somatic cell nuclear transfer, otherwise known (somewhat inaccurately) as
A clone's DNA is
exactly the same as creating an embryo by "cloning," involves1:
that of the original
organism.
 The starvation and subsequent implantation of DNA from specialized, nonsexual cells of one organism (e.g., cells specialized to make that organism's
hair or milk) into an egg whose DNA nucleus has been removed.
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The resulting egg and nucleus are shocked or chemically treated so that the
egg begins to behave as though fertilization has occurred, resulting in the
beginning of embryonic development of a second organism containing the
entire genetic code of the first organism.
Mammalian cloning, through this nuclear transfer process, has resulted in the birth of
hundreds of organisms to date. However, significantly more nuclear transfer generated
embryos fail during pregnancy than would fail in sexual reproduction, and a substantial
majority of cloned animals who have survived to birth have had some significant birth
defect.
Reproduction, or perhaps more accurately, replication of an organism's DNA identity
Human cloning: the does not normally occur in mammals, with the exception of twinning, which always
most controversial results in the simultaneous birth of siblings. Only plants reproduce through replication
from one generation to another. The prospect of such replication for humans has
debate of the
resulted in the most controversial debate about reproduction ever to be taken up in
decade.
western civilization.
Cloning Issues
In addition to the obvious risks to the first child, noted below, those who oppose
human cloning point to the repugnance of a style of reproduction with such profound
potential for vanity, arguing that the freedom of children and nature of the family are in
danger.
It's an answer to
infertility, claim
supporters.
Proponents of cloning suggested it might serve as a new, unusual but perhaps
efficacious treatment for infertility, enabling those unable to pass genes to future
generations to do so in a way that is at least analogous to the familial linkage of twins.
Perhaps the most urgent ethical, legal and social issues about cloning arise in the
context and process that may lead to the birth of a first human clone. This is so
because, as has been pointed out by scholars and politicians, early human experiments
Failure,
are likely to result in a number of clinical failures and lead to miscarriage, the necessity
miscarriage, or
deformed offspring of dozens or even hundreds of abortions, or births of massively deformed offspring.
Recent study of mammalian cloning also suggests that a number of defects often
likely in early
created in the reprogramming of the egg do not manifest themselves until later in the
experiments.
life of the resulting clone, so that mature clones have often undergone spectacular,
2
Some defects may unforeseen deaths.
not be revealed until
a clone is mature. The dangers for early prospective clones are controversial and difficult to manage
because
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Can the law prevent
the birth of a clone
when it's our right
to have children?
in part, one is attempting to protect a future potential person against harms that
might be inflicted by their very existence, and
in part because societies around the world have indicated that they believe that
the early cloning experiments will breach a natural barrier that is moral in
character, taking humans into a realm of self-engineering that vastly exceeds
any prior experiments with new reproductive technology.
Laws that would prevent the birth of a first clone are difficult because they traverse
complex jurisprudential ground: protecting an as-yet nonexistent life against
reproductive dangers, in a western world that, in statutory and case law at least, favors
reproductive autonomy.3,4
But the dangers for the first clone pale in comparison to the ethical issues that will
arise should cloning succeed in producing a healthy child, and become part of the
repertoire of new reproductive technologies presently offered to those with sufficient
funds.
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Is a cloned embryo
the same as a
conceived embryo?
The creation of Dolly the sheep at Roslyn, Scotland labs of biotechnology
company PPL Therapeutics (and not-for-profit Roslyn Institute) did not
involve any of the hallmarks of what is known socially, religiously, and
scientifically, as conception: the fusion of egg and sperm and the adhesion of
the thus fertilized egg to the wall of the uterus.5
The genetic and cellular material that led to Dolly indeed might not even
qualify in traditional terms as an embryo, in that mammalian embryos are
scientifically defined in part by how they come into being. It is quite difficult
to divine "what is in the dish" where a "clone" is being created, a problem that
plagues all those who would define and regulate the creation and research on
embryonic progenitors of a clone.
By analogy, many have speculated as to whether
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Does a clone have
parents, autonomy,
or even a soul?
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a human clone lacks traits necessary for true independence from "parent"
progenitors
whether a clone is entitled by contrast to feel that a progenitor (genetically its
monozygotic twin) is an appropriate parent
and many in the general public in western nations identified the most
important problem of cloning as whether a clone would have a soul.
How a clone is to be defined, or rather how difficult is the task of finding a way of
understanding human cloning in terms from traditional language and contemporary
institutions of science and parenting, has proven to be a most formidable challenge.
In moral terms, the questions to be asked about cloning, were it shown to be safe and
effective, are:
What is parenthood
or society in a world
that includes
clones?
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Whether and how does cloning relate to other kinds of families?
What sorts of boundaries of parenthood and social responsibility are
challenged by cloning?
Legal scholars have argued that cloning may violate, for example, a child's "right to an
open future." A child born as a genetic copy of another may feel undue pressure to
become like or different from its progenitor. Yet a right to an open future is difficult to
validate by common law or analogy to ethical analysis about parenthood. What is
Can cloned children
parenthood, after all, but the teaching of values and knowledge to children in an act of
choose their own
stewardship? Perhaps children do not ever have fully open futures. Failing an absolute
destiny?
standard, society will have to find ways to reconcile differences among the many kinds
and degrees of parental control and enhancement of children. While it is tempting to
describe cloning as either a radical new form of parenting or as twinning, either
analysis fails to take account of the need for new ways to integrate the problem of
cloning into social institutions before it becomes an accepted form of reproductive
medicine.
Conclusion: Cloning offers remarkable insight into the power of creation that
humanity has taken into its fold. One theological analysis holds that humans are cocreators with God; perhaps it is more accurate to say that humans are moving ever
If humans "make"
closer to a posture of making babies, rather than having babies. Cloning represents a
babies rather than
remarkable test of human restraint, wisdom and institutional development, one that
"have" babies, are
will in many ways identify the moral features of 21st century biotechnology.
they playing God?
© 2001, American Institute of Biological Sciences. Educators have permission to
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