Virtue Ethics And Reproductive Cloning

people believe that it is too risky and unethical. Reproductive cloning has shown advantages and

I will outline the concept of human reproductive cloning, what the issues are and evaluate it under the Utilitarianism, Deontology and Virtue Theory.

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.

Human cloning is described as “the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human.” Although human cloning has no record of being successful, cloning was demonstrated to be possible when scientists Sir Ian Wilmut and the rest of their research team successfully cloned Dolly, a sheep (Wilmut 12). This demonstration opened up a new area of science ready to be explored. If animals can be cloned, can human beings be cloned too? If successful, scientists would be able to clone human copies and further advance modern medicine, such as using cells for regenerative medicine or harvesting organs for transplants. It is also possible that other fields of medicine and research can be furthered with this supply of human clones. Additionally, couples incapable of reproducing can pursue cloning to create an offspring with their DNA. However, human cloning has never been successful and comes with ethical concerns.The clone can suffer from abnormalities. There are also concerns regarding the treatment of embryos to gather stem cells and the treatment of clones as a person. By further investigating and analyzing this topic through the lens of Catholic moral tradition, I hope to make clear the pros and cons of the subject while also evaluating them with an ethical theory learned from this quarter in order to add to the discussion.

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.

The issues behind cloning are many, but the most relevant are religion and ethics. In most religions, a higher power is the only one who can create a human or the process for making one. For example, Christian belief states that God is the only one who can create life.(Putatunda, “The Legal and Ethical Issues of Cloning That Make it Controversial.”) Any way that circumvents God’s plan of creation is considered unnatural. Cloning is also considered unethical, for two basic reasons. The first is that the process has a high failure rate and the second is the belief that a human controlling another’s genes is wrong. (Shapiro, “Ethical and Policy Issues of Human Cloning.”) While these are legitimate concerns, cloning does have many helpful applications. First, cloning can grow healthy cells and organs

When examining how human cloning can increase reproductive freedom, we must first look at what a clone is by definition. “Clone” in its verb tense means to make an identical copy of or in biochemistry, to replicate a fragment of DNA placed in an organism so that there is enough to analyze or use in protein production. This process can be performed for many different uses such as being used to grow in labs, embryotic treatments, genetic screening, anti-aging processes, and reproduction. It is important to note that “human cloning” of embryos will not produce an exact copy of an individual. Rather, it will replicate the same genotype to create a different individual human. ***As a reliable background, in this paper, I will be consistently referencing two main scientific articles. The first is from John Harris, a professor in the Institute of Medicine, Law, and Bioethics at the University of Manchester. His article “Goodbye Dolly” focuses on the nature and practicality of cloning. The other research article is by Alix Magney, a lecturer at the several universities who focuses on bioethics and medical health professionals, and highlights the investigations of the negative impacts of human cloning.

Although therapeutic cloning has been proven to be beneficial, it still has risks such as new diseases and disfigurations. Also, the organs used for transplant may not be functional and may cause death. It is better to avoid these risks and instead do stem cell research and study natural cells to cure diseases and illnesses. Let alone the fact that reproductive cloning also has major risks. As Barack Obama stated, "We cannot ever tolerate misuse or abuse. And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction, it is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society." (Fox News 1) This relates to the point that if cloning was in the wrong hands, it could be very dangerous to the people of the

While some believe cloning to be acceptable others feel equally strongly that human cloning is completely wrong. With the state of the science as it is at the moment it would involve hundreds of damaged pregnancies to achieve one single live cloned baby. What is more, all the evidence suggests that clones are unhealthy and often have a number of built-in genetic defects, which lead to premature ageing and death. It would be completely wrong to bring a child into the world knowing that it was extremely likely to be affected by problems like these. The dignity of human life and the genetic uniqueness we all have would be attacked if cloning became commonplace. People might be

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.

This essay will focus on reproductive human cloning particularly whether or not cloning is unethical as the clone would only be a means to the parent(s)’ end. This is a difficult question to answer as I believe there is a significant lack of critical discussion between this proposed Kantian view and other moral theories. This Kantian moral view is known as the duty of ‘human dignity’ and takes on the form of instrumentalism.

One of the most important arguments against cloning has been the probability of the outcome. In past animal cloning attempts, it has been significantly shown that things do not turn out as planned. There have been both unknowns and unknown unknowns that are simply unpredictable as technology has demonstrated. Animals that have been cloned have suffered multiple birth defects, deformities, and ultimately, death (can you cite a source?). There has been inadequate success of cloning animals to ensure that it is entirely safe to perform on humans without a negative or unwanted outcome (cite). This same result could be that we are potentially left

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

Beginning with the moral argument, one must understand reproductive freedom. Most cloning activists say that reproduction, or the lack there of, is a natural freedom given to people (C). Restricting human cloning would be a violation of that right. Just as people can choose not to reproduce using contraception, abortion, or abstinence, people should be allowed to use all means possible within their ability to reproduce, such as through cloning and in vitro fertilization (C). Cloning is the application of this right specifically (C). Another benefit of cloning is the ability to clone someone who has died to console those who are grieving over their lost loved one or to clone the DNA of a person that was known for his of her greatness. Scientists would be able to recreate these people in a new environment (C). A clone's parent may have come from

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