Human Cloning - is it right?
Do you know the most famous lamb whose name was Dolly? Dolly was the first cloned living animal in the world. Most of people might be unaware of this technique which had grown mysteriously in a culture. How cloning will surprise us? Michael Ruse is well known for his work on the creationism and evolution; he calls the term “cloning” which means the replication of a human individual by the taking of a cell with genetic material and the cultivation of the cell through the egg, embryo, fetal, and newborn stages into a new human individual (2001). After Dolly, do we need think about the same happening to human beings? Human Cloning has become a bone of contention in society. I oppose human cloning because of following reasons: it can affect the dignity of human; it cannot avoid marginal ethics and some of the biological risks, and it creates extra challenging pressures on society and politics.
The first disadvantage is that human cloning has bad effects on the dignity of human. Cloning creates a child by using the same procedure as was used to create Dolly sheep. This way is also called reproduction. Roetz, a professor who specializes in cross-culture ethics and human rights, he calls human cloning as a reproduction, and it can destroy relationships between parents and children. It can cause strange bonds between natural and unnatural things. It is also an impersonal laboratory procedure (Roetz, 2006). People might be surprised that a cloned baby has the same appearance as his or her father and mother. That means they look the same in life, so it makes people confused about how we can build the relationship in the family or how to distinguish father and son. If someone has a child who looks the same as his or her parents, other people will be unacceptable about the relationship of parent and child, and there would be a lot of misunderstandings during daily life. R. Kass and Q. Wilson, a scientist and humanist who specializes in cloning, they give a comprehensive opinion to point out this current situation, they give a disapproval about father-son or mother-daughter twins that are proposed by human cloning (1998). The essence of reproduction is copying parents’ appearance and characteristics to create a child (Kass & Wilson, 1998). Some people support human cloning because they think it is a good way to have a perfect baby; especially it is a benefit to women who physically can’t have children, so if, parents have a “perfect” baby image in mind, such as having blonde hair with blue eyes, and so on, parents might just go to the doctor’s office and order what kind of child they want. Walter Glannon is a Clinical Ethicist at the Children's and Women's research at University of British Columbia, he calls human cloning threatens to undermine a child’s freedom, its autonomy in constructing and carrying out a life plan for children; they might lose congenital characteristics by themselves, not produced by their parents’ decision (2001). Human Cloning might be a dangerous process which maybe leads to father-son or mother daughter twins. Although there have been studies on cloning and the long term effects from it, Dolly the sheep eventually had problems with cancer and became arthritic. In fact, the ways of human cloning are the last way that we should attempt reproduction because we still can’t predict what the consequences of human cloning are.
The second disadvantage is that human cloning cannot avoid marginal ethics and some of the biological risks. So far, Scientists cannot avoid the failure of human cloning; because this technique does not have one hundred percent of warranty, and the process of human cloning cannot be accepted by most people, scientists have to use animals to do experiments instead of using humans. The experiments of human cloning can damage the balance of nature because of the death of animals. Arlene Judith, this person who is a lawyer and bioethicist also thinks that it is not fair between humans and nonhuman animals; it is supposed to have a specific or moral principle to manage the experiments of nonhuman animals (Arlene Judith, 2001). Cloning animals obviously raises ethical issues; some people want to use this technique on animals because of their infinitely rapacity on self-interest. Generally speaking, it is possible that the technology of cloning can be unsuccessful because the rate of cloning the cell nucleus is favorable for most of female embryos. According to the academic observation by R. Kass and Q. Wilson, they also think the human cloning is not absolutely successful because the males cannot be perfectly cloned while the females can be perfectly cloned (R. Kass & Q. Wilson, 1998). In addition, the life of a human who is cloned is very short because we cannot predict how long he or she will live and what diseases can happen to him or her. The effect of this problem makes men become superfluous. It damages the balance between females and males. Finally, it can cause some social problems; for example, women will serve with the military because they can be cloned perfectly, as a result the majority of men won’t have wives so that many families don’t have an heir. Those are all uncertain society consequences that increase social disapprovals of human cloning. Some families support human cloning because they want to use the way of human cloning to pre-determine the sex of a child before parturition. It is unfair for every child because each child is a gift for a family. If a mother wants to have a child who is a male, the mother might choose to get an abortion if she knows the child will be a girl. E. Pence, a professor who teaches medical ethics also opposes human cloning on testing the sex of a child before parturition because it can directly break the connection to sexual differentiation and procreation. It makes no expectation about the child’s birth (E. Pence, 1998). In addition, abortions are illegal in some states in America. This is the bad factor that affects the development of human cloning. I think most people must be frightened to attempt this new way of reproduction because we don’t get any guarantee unless the skills can be undertaken in a moral or successful way.
The third disadvantage is that human cloning it creates extra challenging pressures on society and politics under certain circumstances. For example, all Dolly’s life is observed and monitored by everyone because it is not only a special animal, but also is a contribution for the research of human cloning. If cloned people live around us, their lives must be bothered because they are not from a normal way of birth, and everything about them can be a mystery and remarkable to discover. Cloned people might live in the shadow. John Harris who is specialized on research of Human Cloning, he found that a cloned people might go through life always being compared to the person whom from one was cloned. Might one not feel stigmatized by one’s origins? These are real worries, he feel that the right of person to have a cloned child outweighs the negative factors (2001). Meanwhile, although scientists can be allowed to explore freely on human cloning, they encounter a lot of problems during research. If they need some people which are offered for experiments of human cloning, the government will not provide any help to find a person or provide any financial support for this research. In fact, the experiment of human cloning is not encouraged in this society. The president's Council on Bioethics, a presidential commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, they also said that the government will not give supports on this research in order to keep society in a healthy and safe condition. Prohibiting human cloning must essentially force them to solve this paradoxical problem (President’s Council on Bioethics, July 2002). It is obvious that there is no support from governments because human cloning is becoming an ethical issue in society. R. Kass and Q. Wilson also give us an example, President Clinton doesn’t spend any federal funds on human cloning because he doesn’t want to actuate the contradictions between the technical skills and the ethics of society (R. Kass & Q. Wilson, 1998). On the other hand, some people think that human cloning is an advancement of technology because it contributes to military affairs. If the reproduction is used on soldiers, it will create a large army for protecting the country. Although national power is necessary for a country, the human nature of a country is vital to standing out as a diverse power in the world. Creating too many soldiers can lead to more wars, and undermine the peace of the world. Everyone who lives in the world will feel unsafe because they will lose their homes or families randomly. Human cloning breaches the harmony of society, so the government will prevent the bad factors existing in society. Arlene Judith also gives proof of this when she explains that the California statute makes the civil penalties up to ten millions for cloning, in order to prohibit any corporation, firm, clinic, hospital, or research facility from cloning a human being (Arlene Judith, 2001).
In a word, human cloning can affect the relationship in a family, can cause some the biological risks and unmoral status, and can create extra challenging pressures on society and politics. These arguments that oppose human cloning let us know that: each human is a unique individual, and everyone has a right to possess personal characteristic. Some people might dislike anyone who can copy their life or rob their personality; we don’t need extra attention from society, so much as it destroys our regular life. Using a technology which can determine our lifetime is not humanistic because the fate is controlled by us. If you have a chance to be involved in human cloning, do you think the risks are worth the benefits? to human cloning?
Reference
Klotzko, A. J. (2001). The cloning sourcebook. New York: Oxford
University Press, Inc.
Krass, L. R., & Wilson, J. Q. (1998). The ethics of human cloning. Washington
DC: American Enterprise Institute.
President’s Council on Bioethics. (2002). Human cloning and human dignity: An
ethical inquiry. Washington, DC: Superintendent of Documents, U.S.
Government Printing office.
Pence, G. E. (1998). Who’s afraid of human cloning. The United States of
America: Rowman & Littlefield publishers, Inc.
Roetz, H. (2006). Cross-cultural issues in bioethics: The example of human
cloning. New York: Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam
Barbara, M. K. (2000). Human Cloning. The United States of America: Library of
Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Michael, R. & Aryne, S. (2001). Cloning: responsible science or technomadness?
New York: Prometheus Books.
Gregory, E. P. (2004) Cloning after Dolly: who’s still afraid? The United States
of America: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
