Should Cloning Be Banned Essay, Research Paper

Should Cloning be Banned?

What ever happened to that magical word cloning that dazzled everyone s mind. This one word has produced pride, anger, and amazement all at one. Pride, basically because humans have finally mastered the idea of producing a complete replica of a mammal. Anger, because the idea of cloning a human has stirred up many moral arguments. And amazement because just the idea of producing a human asexually, is well amazing. Cloning has stirred up many controversies, and when it all boils down to it, cloning is extremely beneficial to mankind.

Strictly speaking, a clone refers to one or more offspring derived from a single ancestor, whose genetic composition is identical to that of the ancestor. (Beddington) No sex is involved in the production of clones, and since sex is the normal means which new genetic material is produced, clones have no choice but to be the exact duplicate and have the same genes as their parent. There is no sperm introduced to add its genetic makeup. Since our genes dictate what we look like, how we behave, and what we can and cannot do, having identical genes ensures something more then similarity. (Beddington)

So it is easy to understand why the production of Dolly, the sheep developed from an egg whose own genes were replaced by those from an adult cell, was the first of this kind produced. Dolly was a direct clone of the sheep (her genetic mother) who provided the cells. The package of genes in the nucleus of that adult cell contained exactly the same amount, and same makeup of genes as all the rest of her mothers, so Dolly s genetic makeup was identical to her mothers. This was the first successful attempt to clone a mammal.

There are many ways in which human cloning is expected to benefit mankind. Below explains ways it is expected to help people. Because heart disease is the number one killer in the United States, human cloning technology can be used to reverse heart attacks. Scientists believe that they are able to treat heart attack victims by cloning their healthy heart cells, and injecting then into the areas of the heart that has been damaged. Also there has been a breakthrough with human stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can be grown to produce organs or tissues to replace or repair damages ones. (Benefits ) Skin cells for burned victims, brain cells for a damaged brain, spinal cord cells for quadriplegics and paraplegics. Also lungs, livers and kidneys can be produced. By doing this the replaced organ will be a copy of your own, therefore reducing the rejection from their immune systems. For infertile people, cloning the couples now they can have children. People, who suffer with leukemia, now with cloning scientists can clone the bone marrow for children and adults suffering with this disease. This is expected to be one of the first benefits to come from cloning. For spinal cord injuries, the spinal nerves can be grown back. Quadriplegics might be able to get up out of their wheel chairs and do the unthinkable, walk.

Many people have criticized human cloning, and here are some ideas that many anti-cloning activists have stated. Creating another person with the same genetic code would violate human dignity and uniqueness. These arguments are incorrect, and are invalidated by the existence of over 150 million people in the world whose genetic codes are identical. These people are identical twins, and do people think twins violate human dignity? This reaction is just a response to misinformation to human cloning. Human clones are most likely to think of themselves as special, since they are the twins of a distinguished individual (The Case ) They will also have the advantage early in life at knowing what they are good at.

Another popular argument against human cloning is it would diminish genetic diversity, leaving us more vulnerable to disease and epidemics . This is based on the idea that cloning would be exploited to the extreme. There are over 5 billion people on Earth, and cloning would be done on a very small scale, since costs would prohibit over cloning. It would take decades before the clone population could even reach a million.

In conclusion cloning can, and will be beneficial to mankind. By creating clones we can help cure and prevent fatal and painful diseases. Those who can not walk might finally be able to walk. There are many more positives to cloning then the negatives. With scientific discovery there will naturally be some mishaps, but that should not let us impair our scientific progress. If cloning is to be banned, what might we be missing?

Bibliography

1. Beddington, Rosa. Cloning. http://www.nimr.mrc.ac.uk/mhe97/cloning.htm Online Erol s Internet. 21 Dec 1998.

2. The benefits of Human Cloning. http://www.humancloning.org/benefits.htm Online Erol s Internet. 21 Dec 1998.

3. The Case for Human Cloning. http://www.best.com/ vere/cloning.htm Online Erol s Internet. 21 Dec 1998.