Human Cloning
The human race would be better off in the long run if the best of us were copied…???
Introduction
The ethics of human cloning has become a great issue in the past few years. The advocates for both sides of the issue have many reasons to clone or not to clone. Cloning will first be defined. Followed by that, a discussion of the opinions that support cloning will be presented and then the same against cloning. And finally, the stakes of the ethical problem of human cloning will be stated.
I) What is cloning?
1) Defining human cloning
To use a specific definition, the American Medical Association (AMA) defined cloning as “the production of genetically ...view middle of the document...
II) The benefits and disadvantages of human cloning
1) Potential medical benefits
Rejuvenation is a key argument for advocates of cloning. Human cloning may one day reverse heart attacks. Some scientists believe that by injecting cloned healthy heart cells into damaged heart tissue will lead to healing of the heart
Cloning organs for organ transplants is one of the major practical reasons that cloning should be allowed. There is always a high demand for organs. Some argue for the cloning of humans to create spare body parts. Others talk of just wanting to clone an organ to replace a defective organ.
Through cloning, research can progress. We possibly can learn more about cell differentiation. We can learn enough to produce human organs without having to produce human beings.
Cloning can be used to help those that are sterile and cannot have children through the normal way. Cloning will allow them to have a child or many children that have the genetic pattern of one of the parents.
2) Potential harms and disadvantages
Cloning would lead to the loss of individuality because one’s genetic predispositions and conditions would be known. This could be a great stress to the clone and possibly even the loss of ability to chose for itself.
A “black market†of fetuses may arise from desirable donors that will want to be able to clone themselves, i.e., movie stars, athletes, and others.
Technology as we presently know it will not effectively support the cloning of humans. Only around one in 20 animal clones survives; many come with terrible deformities. That sort of success rate is tolerable with sheep, not so with humans.
The fear that clones will be treated as second-class citizens is also present. Many will believe clones to be somehow inferior to other humans. There is also the fear that some would want to clone people to create large armies of the same soldier or even produce large amounts of workers.
There are also unknown psychological factors. No-one knows or could know what it would be like to be the clone of one's father or mother, nor what expectations and distortions it would put on relationships in the family.
III) The stakes of the dialogue
1) The Governments make a move
The governments went...
