The Permissable Nature of Cloning Illustrated in Jennifer and Rachel by ” Lee M. Silver

2. The most effective argument in his essay is when he says “Millions are suffering. This is precisely the argument that research-cloning advocates are deploying today to allow them to break the moral barrier of creating.” In this argument he points out how the research advocates can't be trusted because a year ago, they assured they only wanted to do stem cell research on discarded embryos. He also points out that the research advocates create new excuses in order to keep breaking the moral barrier. In addition, they promised to only grow human clones only to the blastocyst stage. In other words, they would not create a human embryo in the laboratory. Today, they are campaigning hard to permit research for the creation of human embryos. This shows us that the research advocates are not keeping their promise because they are campaigning in order to create human embryos. The author's

“We all realized that it [was not] that simple…We all of us, to varying degrees, believed that when you saw the person you were copied from, [you would] get some insight into who you were deep down, and maybe too, [you would] see something of what your life held in store” (Ishiguro 2005). Kazuo Ishiguro writes this excerpt in his infamous novel Never Let Me Go, a novel that stirs a subtle discomfort in readers as it uncovers an inner curiosity in the outcomes of human reproductive cloning. In this short quote, Ishiguro reveals how the clones inherently have a desire to know their purpose in life, and seeks to find it in their original human copy. It is often thought that Ishiguro wrote this novel as a simple inquiry: do clones have souls and

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.

Many argue that cloning creates serious issues of identity and individuality and forces humans to consider the definition of self. Some people may oppose this idea, stating the environment in which a person grows largely contributes to the formation of his or her individuality; however, his or her appearance would be completely the same as the original. Some then contend that twins have the same appearance and are accepted in our environment. However, making human cloned twins restricts the individuality artificially, not naturally.

Imagine a world where everyone looked like you and was related to you as a sibling, cousin, or any form of relation, wouldn’t that be freaky? Although cloning is not an important issue presently, it could potentially replace sexual reproduction as our method of producing children. Cloning is a dangerous possibility because it could lead to an over-emphasis on the importance of the genotype, no guaranteed live births, and present risks to both the cloned child and surrogate mother. It also violates the biological parent-child relationship and can cause the destruction of the normal structure of a family. The cloning of the deceased is another problem with cloning because it displays the inability of the parents to accept the child’s

New areas of science often raise questions about safety. Reflecting back on the past medical technologies invented, people have always opposed it but often benefit from it later on in life. The use of in-vitro fertilization, for instance, was once a controversial issue. Some people worried that society could discriminate against humans produced as a result of IVF and humans could spread diseases. Furthermore, its usefulness cannot be predicted because it is just a research tool, and so on. Today, those worries and concerns have not manifested, but instead have brought joy and happiness to families. The people born through IVF process are as happy and equal as any other average child. It is

In this day and age, many technology that were a fantasy for our grandparents and great-grandparents are becoming legitimately plausible advancements. One such fantasy that has become a reality is cloning. Cloning is defined as the asexual creation of a genetic duplicate of whatever organism it is derived. Scientists are not far away from being able to do this, and this frightens many people. The possibility of humans created in a lab is a frightening thought, so many people have fought against the progression of research, arguing that these clones do not have the ability to truly be individuals. In our world and technology, cloning is scientifically plausible, but in a world that emphasizes individuality, this technology is not as welcomed

The act of cloning a human being comes dangerously close to human beings acting as God. Do human beings have the right to tamper with nature in this way? This essay explores the various ethical issues related to the cloning debate, and seeks answers to this deep philosophical question at the heart of bioethics. As a student of genetic biology and future biologist, this question also has personal relevance. Our science is evolving at a rapid pace. As human cloning becomes increasingly possible, it is important that we analyze the ethics of cloning so that judicious public policy can be created. It is therefore my position that research into cloning should continue to fulfill the fundamental goals of scientific exploration and to explore the possibilities that cloning might have in terms of benefitting human society; on the other hand, there are certainly ethical limits to the practice of cloning. It is important to define those ethical limits, so that scientists understand the best ways to proceed.

clone is created, and this act of reproductive cloning is regarded with controversy; is it

“Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done” said American science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein. Heinlein was correct in his observation. Throughout the course of history, the gender of a child has always been a surprise and an uncontrollable part of life. Often it is regarded as a component of natural selection. Yet, scientific technologies have “made the impossible possible.” Advancement in In-vitro fertilization and uses of preimplantation genetic diagnosis have allowed people to have the power to make many genetic alterations to their future child, including gender selection. However, this scientific discovery brought about a controversial movement for reproductive freedom and draws out ethical concerns about what it

This sci-fi plot line may be familiar, but it has nothing to do with the actual, controversial cloning process, one that may be used by today’s scientists to create cloned human embryos in the not-so-distant future.

In the creation of technological advances that survives today, the dispute of cloning is ever existent as a debate of morals and human rights. People are asking if we have the right to clone humans and other animals. Cloning, the process of taking a cell from one organism, taking a donor womb cell from another organism of the same species, inserting the original cell in the donor cell, and placing the newly developed embryo inside a surrogate mother. This is an inhumane desecration of human rights and an obscene act against the natural balance of life. There are those who think that cloning is a brilliant idea and that it is tolerable to create life from an individual which already exists. Those in support of cloning have countless reasons for their opinion. They say that clones and cloning can be used for medical and research purposes, that clones are capable of populating our military. Another reason for cloning is to replace a deceased child or pet, or to enable infertile couples to have children. But these people in support of cloning seem to ignore one key factor that makes this act a violation of nature. All living human beings have feelings and thoughts, and that also includes clones. Cloning belittles the individualities each person and animals acquires, and many consider it an ethical injustice.

The recent past has seen successful research on cloning. Cloning is the asexual reproduction intended to produce an exact copy of an animal or human. In the case of human cloning, this is done by fusing the human DNA into a human egg causing it to divide and grow. This often results into the creation of a copy of an individual. For many years, human dignity has been upheld because human beings are divine beings with peculiar features and capabilities. The development of the cloning technology risks diminishing the dignity of human beings, by creating copies of individuals. I am opposed to cloning because its consequence is the creation of copies of human beings, which undermines their dignity of because clones would be treated as mere copies of other persons (Morrey, 2002).

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).

As aptly put by Rosa Beddington, the word “clone” has become one of the most emotive of all the terms coined by scientists which have entered popular vocabulary. I shall add another, and that will be the phrase “Dolly the sheep”. The conception of Dolly, the “baby” of scientist Ian Wilmut and his team has opened the possibility of cloning humans. The mention of Dolly brings to average the person, haunting connotations of “future replicas of living megalomaniacs and the resurrected dead”. Indeed, Dolly has provided misconceptions about cloning, which, to a certain extent is skewed.