Human Cloning Ethics

The concept or idea behind cloning has been a controversial topic since it was introduced in the late 19th century. Although this concept did not come to life until 1996 when the first animal was cloned ethical debates where already in the works. These debates highlighted issues like public policy, human rights, and loss of uniqueness. Scientist, Religious organization and International Governments ethically the argued both the consequences and the benefits that derive from this situation. Part of the science community as well as Religious organizations argues against cloning as it is ethically wrong as this discovery was not God’s intent when creating life. Whereas the other part of the science community, as well as international government institutions, argue that cloning is beneficial to the advancement of humanity. In retrospect, religious organizations argument could be supported by both Natural Law ethics and Divine Law of Command. Where Government institution claim for a progression in society is supported by Cultural relativism and evolutionary ethics.

that goes into creating a clone. First, scientist remove a somatic cell from an animal that they

The 21st century however forecasts an astonishing increase in innovation in another direction. While previously overshadowed by its larger cousins, physics and chemistry, it seems likely that the biological sciences will steal the limelight in the future. Mapping the genome, reversing the aging process, and finding a cure for terminal illnesses, all represent primary objectives for science. Unfortunately, the ethical questions posed by innovations in biomedicine are far greater than those posed by advances in the physical sciences. Reproductive cloning is one of these innovations, and one that arguably poses the greatest threat to the world as we know it. The universal truth, blindly accepted by man for millennia, held that a human could only be born through the sexual union of a male and a female, to be exact, of an egg and a sperm. By cloning, however, a human life can be created in the laboratory. This is done by taking human DNA and inserting it into an egg cell, sans genetic material. The resultant cell is identical to the original, and can then be inserted into a uterus, either a human or an animal one, and be grown to term, to produce a baby, while circumventing nature’s means of reproduction.

Cloning has always been a controversial subject. It has been discussed verbally, electronically, and academically. It has been discussed through books, movies, and newspaper articles, even if some of those are not serious and more fictional. Once source of discussion is the book called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. It is about the true story of a woman named Henrietta Lacks, who had her cells taken without her knowledge. Within the book, the controversy of cell cloning and human cloning are discussed.

Joshua Lederberg’s controversial article titled “Experimental Genetic and Human Evolution” promoting human cloning, published in the 60’s sparked the widespread debate on cloning that would continue for decades to come. Leon Kass, leader of the President’s council of bioethics and a prominent figure in this debate, engaged in a lively debate with Lederberg where he argued that the “programmed reproduction of a man would, in fact, dehumanize him.” Lederberg and Kass are arguably the most well-known figures in the debate surrounding the issue of human reproductive cloning, and their hardline views on this matter, to a large extent, reflect the views of most people I have talked to about human cloning. On reading pieces published by various medical ethicists and philosophers, I have had a hard-time distinguishing what pieces of information we can really trust as the process of human cloning and all of its perceived implications because of what they are: perceptions. We still have no real way of knowing what a “developed” process of cloning would look like and the only way we can really discuss this is to make rational assumptions of how human cloning could take place (the duration, whether the child will have a gestation period within the mother, the potential biological impediments of the process, etc). However, even so, we still have no real idea of how it would actually change societal

Science today is developing at warp speed. We have the capability to do many things, which include the cloning of actual humans! First you may ask what a clone is? A clone is a group of cells or organisms, which are genetically identical, and have all been produced from the same original cell. There are three main types of cloning, two of which aim to produce live cloned offspring and one, which simply aims to produce stem cells and then human organs. These three are: reproductive cloning, embryo cloning and therapeutic cloning. The goal of therapeutic cloning is to produce a healthy copy of a sick person's tissue or organ for transplant, and the goal of both reproductive cloning and embryo cloning is to

Cloning has been a major question in our minds. While analyzing and talking in depth this topic, it is noticeable that it is not necessary. Many people believe cloning is pro-life because they only see what a biologist desires to show. People are greedy and they just want to get to the next level. They desire to see to what extremity biologist is willing to go. I disagree with this fact that cloning should be legal in the United States.

The therapeutic and reproductive cloning has been a controversial issue over decades. The issues with therapeutic cloning can be viewed in different points such as ethical consideration, a.k.a. violating human dignity, and benefits from the cloning techniques. The discussion over the topic shows that the cloning is not either absolutely right or wrong nor good or bad. Especially, after the cloned sheep, Dolly, had been “created”, it has shown the possibility of cure for many deadly diseases, while people have been threatened with depriving inviolable human rights. The prospect of the therapeutic and reproductive cloning raises various ethical questions: Is it possible to make a successful first attempt of cloning a human without violating

Human cloning was successfully tested twenty years ago but on a sheep. Surprisingly the experiment was successful and from that point on human cloning became a widely debated topic. Human cloning has developed many different debate topics within it. Some say it is an unethical procedure and it conflicts with many beliefs; safety for women is one of the very important topics and cloning some say that this related to abortion because it is a destruction of an embryo. The government should ban human reproductive cloning because it violates ethical beliefs, women are put at risk, and embryos are destroyed for the purpose of the procedure.

The first problem that human cloning encounter is it is one of unethical processes because it involves the alteration of the human genetic and human may be harmed, either during experimentation or by expectations after birth. “Cloning, like all science, must be used responsibly. Cloning human is not desirable. But cloning sheep has its uses.”, as quoted by Mary Seller, a member of the Church of England’s Board of Social Responsibility (Amy Logston, 1999). Meaning behind this word are showing us that cloning have both advantages and disadvantages. The concept of cloning is hurting many human sentiments and human believes. “Given the high rates of morbidity and mortality in the cloning of other mammals, we believe that cloning-to-produce-children would be extremely unsafe, and that attempts to produce a cloned child would be highly unethical”, as quoted by the President’s Council on Bioethics. Since human cloning deals with human life, it said to be unethical if people are willing to killed embryo or infant to produce a cloned human and advancing on it. The probability of this process is successful is also small because the technology that being used in this process is still new and risky.

    In our modern day world, the technology of genetic engineering and human cloning for the use of asexual reproduction has reached a point to where we must ask ourselves if it is a good practice for medical purposes, or if it presents issues of ethical and moral concern.  Human cloning is a very cmplex process; it is very multilayered in the promises and threats that are suggested by scientists (Kolata 8).  In the basic definition, cloning is accomplished by removing the nucleus of a mature, unfertilized egg and replacing it with a specialized cell from an adult organism.  The nucleus taken contains most of the hereditary material from the original human source, and it

If a random individual were asked twenty years ago if he/she believed that science could clone an animal, most would have given a weird look and responded, “Are you kidding me?” However, that once crazy idea has now become a reality, and with this reality, has come debate after debate about the ethics and morality of cloning. Yet technology has not stopped with just the cloning of animals, but now many scientists are contemplating and are trying to find successful ways to clone human individuals. This idea of human cloning has fueled debate not just in the United States, but also with countries all over the world. I believe that it is not morally and ethically right

around the world on whether or not to ban cloning humans. With the advancement of

Many ethical and moral dilemmas arise when discussing human cloning, and one can have many positions for and against each. To understand the issues surrounding human cloning, one must have a basic

As the advancement of time, the concept of human cloning can become a reality as with the breakthrough of biotechnology. Human cloning can be defined in terms of formation of genetically same imprint of an individual. The child who produced from this process is a new category of human being that is a clone of a person who cloned himself. Many people think that it is not right to cloned human beings. People argued that it is wrong to create identical human being, and this argument is dismissed by stating various other arguments in the favor of human cloning such as there is nothing wrong if monozygotic twins exist, and clone is not the identical copy of the original human being even in those situations where clone is exact genetic copy because those clones are developed in a completely different environment. In this paper, I will discuss the life in shadow argument as well as arguments opponent to it. In addition, I will discuss the ethical considerations of human reproductive cloning regarding this