The ethics class was becoming more interesting and intriguing lecture after lecture as we go to bigger ethical issues. The most fascinating topics of the course were the three lectures of the contemporary ethical issues. Under these three lectures, many debatable issues like cloning, gay marriage, torture and so on were thoroughly studied and analyzed. I have chosen three of them and I am here today to share with you, what is ethical about cloning? Should we say yes or no to human cloning? The ethics of human cloning has become a great issue in the past few years. The patrons for both sides of the issue have many reasons to clone or not to clone. I will provide both the pros and cons and why do we need to go against it, but before that cloning will be defined. Again, it is my pleasure to share such a marvelous topic on this website and I hope you will bear with me until end.
Cloning is as defined by the American Medical Association (AMA), “the production of genetically identical organisms via somatic cell nuclear transfer. ‘Somatic cell nuclear transfer’ refers to the process which the nucleus of a somatic cell of an existing organism is transferred into an oocyte from which the nucleus has been removed”. This means it is a process where an exact copy of parent can be created from its cells, for example your clone will be a person who resembles you in every aspect. It all began in February 1997, when embryologist Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at Roslin Institute in Scotland were able to clone a lamb, named Dolly, the world was introduced to a new possibility and will never be the same again (Nash). Before this, cloning was thought to be impossible, but now there is living proof that the technology and knowledge to clone animals exist. This brought the human cloning debate, so is human cloning next? Without any doubt the answer is yes since many institutions started trying it. However, IS ETHICAL TO CLONE HUMANS?
Advocates assert cloning could eliminate the highly demand of organs since large quantities of cells are developed to make organs available. Thus it will solve medical tragedies. This is ridiculous because the clone itself is a new life so sacrificing one life for the potential benefit of the others. Furthermore, medical achievements will not come in a mere dream but they will need a lot of research and trials which involve using clone which is a living thing. Hence, it is not ethical in any way to play with humans with the possibility of achieving or not achieving a better medical care. Supporters also argue that cloning will be a solution for infertile couples. Though, I agree to some extent that cloning enables infertile couple to have children, it will disturb and terminate love and parent-child relationship. Therefore, it will not relieve stress from parents but honestly it will increase and they will feel guilty especially when the expected results are not achieved.
On the other hand, we see that a large percentage of cloning experiment end with failures and disaster. Reproductive cloning is inherently unsafe. At least 95% of mammalian cloning experiments have resulted in failures in the form of miscarriages, stillbirths, and life-threatening anomalies; some experts believe no clones are fully healthy. The technique could not be developed in humans without putting the physical safety of the clones and the women who bear them at grave risk. Secondly, cloning would lead to loss of biodiversity if people want to have children with same genetic type to them. This would be dangerous biologically, because species with similar traits can easily be affected by diseases. Thirdly, it exploits women who carry large numbers of embryos which will be used for experiments. Many women are paid to carry the clones which will be used for the experiments. This is unethical and it exploits the women by wasting their time with experiments which have very low rate of success. Lastly, I strongly believe that God created us and that we are subjected to His laws and must obey. The laws of God that have the worst punishment deal with bringing life into the world and taking life out of the world. Therefore, do not you expect other disasters if we human try to take the role of the God, which of course we cannot.
To sum it up, human cloning should never be considered ethical because its benefits to the society are far much less than its drawbacks, hence it should be banned. Science has brought many benefits to us, however it should not go beyond the limit otherwise, we would end up by creating a catastrophic creatures with our hands.
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