Human Cloning Essay, Research Paper

To consider the cloning of another human being forces me to question the very concepts of right and wrong that make us all human.

Until the birth of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be successfully cloned, it was thought that the ability to clone an adult human was impossible or would only be possible somewhere in the distant future! But that has all changed with the birth of Dolly and the explosion of advances in the field of Embryology and genetic screening. These advances are leading the way forward for the cloning of an adult human, which brings up many new ethical and complicated questions that I feel must be addressed by the scientific community and the public, before these advances can reach there full potential.

As with any scientific or technological advance, it brings around questions that I feel must be answered: Do the pros out weight the advantages, and more importantly; is it right? Will Human Cloning become a brave new step in fighting disease and improving the quality of life, or will it lead to dehumanisation and a new genetic underclass?

People say and strongly believe that biologists are cloning human embryos only to see how far they can push the scientific barriers. However not all things are corrupt, I believe, as do the leaders of Great Britain, that it is possible that the reasons behind Human Cloning, Embryology and genetic screening may be legitimate. Cloning could help improve the life of future generations. Although I still prefer the idea of these scientists spending all this money and their effort on finding a cure for a disease that has or will affect many of us in one way or another: cancer! I still keep an open mind about this subject as most of the embryologists and biologist?s claim that they are doing this as they feel that they have a duty to the improvement of our society, or even perhaps a moral obligation. To this end the techniques have been offered to society as an option for the improvement of humanity. The human race is in the early stages of defining human cloning and what it means. The human race is defining it as a science as opposed to an art or religion, specifically a kind of science that is called Biotechnology. Biotechnology is the study into the design and manufacture of the human body.

I believe that we must all ask ourselves what this mean. Should it be allowed and is it right? A Time Magazine poll (March 10th, 1997) reported that 74% of those asked believe that it is against God?s will to clone humans. However, thinking that cloning humans is playing God is not actually true as no one can actually prove what God’s intentions were when crating the earth and the creatures on it? There is substantial disagreement as to what God’ s will is, but what I find interesting in this argument is something I read in an article “Cloning: Will They Soon Clone Human Beings?” by Garner Ted Armstrong who wrote: ” Anyone who has truly proved God exists; that God isn’t only Creator, but Life giver, Designer, Sustainers, and Ruler over all his creation, knows that the human family began with one man, and that a wife, miraculously created form his own body and as unique and original a creation as Adam himself, formed the first family. Though God’s miraculous creation of Eve was far from cloning, it is interesting to note in passing that God’s own Word says He used Adam’s rib-physical bone and tissue – to create Eve.”

This shows, to me, that God had to clone Adam to create Eve?s body structure, which could be argued that is what biologists and embryologists are only doing following in God?s foot steps and not playing God.

I firmly believe, after taking all this information in and weighting the positive and negative aspects of human cloning, that it is a decision of difficulty. Human cloning and cloning research shouldn’t be made illegal because it may provide a cure for cancer, it probably will provide a valuable basic research and possible spin off technologies related to reproduction, development, and cures for deadly diseases, and finally prohibiting it would violate the fundamental freedom of scientific inquiry and for the human species to advance. Which would only cause controversy and confusion of what is really at stake. Yes sure it is good as it leads on for new developments and helps improve human life. As always there are the negative aspects: with genetic engineering and human cloning it is possible to use these in the arsenal of ethnic cleansing creating inequality in our society which would be the beginning of many wars, and that?s some thing that the scientits, biologists and embryologists, as well me, don?t want to see. All I can say is ?is it right?? I say yes, but that is not for me to decide that is up to the individual.