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The Ethics of Human Cloning Essay

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Human cloning is separated into two major categories; reproductive cloning, which uses cloning technology to create a human embryo that will produce an entire human, and therapeutic, which adopt cloning into field of medical practices to find a cure for many diseases (Kass). Reproductive cloning requires a somatic cell, a DNA-less egg, and a surrogate mother; as a result, it creates a new individual with the same genome, or genetic coding. The idea originated in Germany in 1938, but the first successful research was not conducted until 1967 by scientist John Gurdon, who cloned a tadpole with a frog’s somatic cell. The most prominent experiment was the cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1997 by a scientist from Scotland. The successful cloning …show more content…

Using the cloning method, scientists could replace the defective cells with another cloned cell consistent with the patient’s own genome; so instead of risking the chance of dying during the long waiting period of the traditional organ transplant, as many as three thousands Americans could be saved per day. The diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancers, and diabetes can all be treated using therapeutic cloning treatments (“Human Cloning”). Among all the great world religions, Buddhism is the only religion to agree to the fact that therapeutic cloning could alleviate or even stop human suffering and bring benefit to our future (“Introduction to The Ethics of Human Cloning: At Issue”).
Human reproductive cloning may also provide infertile parents a chance to have children with the parent’s genetic makeup. The age differences and environmental factors will affect their development, and it will not permit the clones to develop the exact same and perfected skills. Therefore, the cloned object will not be the exact copy of each other and the chance of creating a gene pool, a group of genetically altered clones, is very unlikely. Even if the government legalizes cloning, it will remain very costly stopping the practice of cloning from spreading widely throughout the communities. There will be rules set up to regulate human cloning as well; for example, cloning a person without their consent could be considered as rape and

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