preview

The Ethical Applications Of Therapeutic Cloning In Medicine

Good Essays

Cloning has been used for medical purposes, and some future applications in medicine have also been proposed. According to Panno, cloning technology is focused on four applications, which are cloning farm animals that have foreign genes that allow them to produce therapeutically useful proteins, cloning livestock that have desirable traits, therapeutic cloning, and reproductive cloning (x). A transgenic clone is a scientific term used to identify farm animals that have a foreign gene introduced into their genome, usually a human gene that codes for the production of a certain protein. Transgenic clones are often used as bio factories to produce therapeutic proteins to meet the worldwide demand for them. Transgenic clones can be used to produce …show more content…

Infertile couples can use cloning techniques to have a child, but some argue that this is an unethical practice. “The fact that people are already inventing -and endorsing- such scenarios demonstrates the corrosive magic this technology works on the notion of human dignity” (Kontorovich 30). Kontorovich argues that cloning will make us treat cloned humans as manufactured goods, take out the humanity of human reproduction and that in doing so it will rob humans of something that cannot be replaced through artificial means (28-29). People argue that infertile couples should consider other alternatives to increase the size of their family, like adoption, but there are couples that prefer having children with their own genes in the child's genome. Many who are against stem cell research also argue that scientists are killing human beings, however, this is not the case, stem cells have not had the opportunity to develop into a human being when they are harvested to be used for stem cell research. If the stem cells were allowed to develop for a longer period of time they would eventually develop into a human being, but they are not a human being when these are used for research. To address all the ethical oppositions to human cloning, Dehainaut claims, that “US congressional representatives have already announced that they will soon introduce legislation to put strict limits on cloning” (34). …show more content…

Recently scientists were able to clone organisms, from frogs, sheep, cows, kittens, endangered species, and the list will only get longer as time goes on, soon humans will also be added to the list. One of the most famous clones is Dolly the sheep, cloned from and adult cell, this signified the possibility of cloning a human, and there have been reports of attempts to clone a human. Cloning has been applied in medicine, by producing transgenic clones that have a foreign gene in their genome, usually a human gene, that codes for the production of certain proteins that will help treat the human population of many illnesses. Cloning allows for stem cell research that will eventually lead to the treatment or cures of diseases. Cloning also provides an alternative to infertility or homosexual couples hoping to increase the size of their families. An addition application is the production of livestock to make the animal less likely to acquire a certain illness. There are plans for a future application of cloning, such as the production of pigs that have organs that the human body will not reject as a transplant. However, these benefits will not come without a cost. The success rates for cloning is low since things can go wrong at any time during the process. Common appearances in the clones are health

Get Access