Cloning

Cloning

After researching this "controversial subject," I feel that cloning is NOT a good idea. There are still many mysteries about it that could be good. But from what I understand, reproduction should only be done the old fashioned way; the way Mother Nature wanted it.

Also, there are people who do not want to have children due to diseases or gene defects, which could pass to their children. By cloning cells the defective genes could be removed from the child and the parents would have a healthy baby.

Human cloning could also offer the chance for people who cannot have children the chance to have their own child, by using the persons DNA they can clone the parent's cells and create a baby.

Human cloning has recently become a fairly controversial subject and people have many different views on it. Some people such as religious groups are against everything to do with cloning. There are people who believe that there is nothing wrong with cloning and people should stop making such a big issue about it. There are also people who are "in-between" and do not believe in cloning full human beings but believe that the medical breakthroughs it can offer is good.

In the current debate over human cloning, two terms are being used: reproductive cloning and research cloning. "Reproductive cloning involves creating a cloned embryo and implanting it into a woman with the goal of creating a child. Research cloning, on the other hand, involves the creation of cloned human embryos which are then destroyed to derive stem cells" (St. Louis Post). As of right now, reproductive cloning is not practiced, but research cloning is being used today to further scientists research about cloning. But even research cloning would contradict the most fundamental principle of medical ethics, that no human life should be exploited or extinguished for the benefit of another. "Yet a law permitting research cloning, while forbidding the birth of a cloned child, would require the destruction of nascent human life" (St. Louis Post). Putting human life in jeopardy is not ethical to many people's standards, but some scientists and pro-cloning people feel that they are not taking human life, for the embryo is not alive when they destroy it to take the stem cells. There are far too many risks to take in cloning humans. Even cloning animals is already difficult with many errors in their research. "Efforts to clone primates have proven even more difficult and might be impossible with current methods, scientists say" (Friend). There are many reasons why many people should not clone humans including the main reason that it is not ethical, but there are still a select few that do not take these thoughts into consideration and continue their research.

Many people have different views of cloning such as "a crime against humanity" (Trounson) and "the prospect of human reproductive cloning has been widely condemned by clerics and ethicists, politicians, pundits and scientists as unethical, unsafe and socially dangerous" (Kevles). An opposing view says, "An important ...