Although, as it is said before, human cloning is the subject of many science fiction novels and movies. Until now, nobody can claim that a human clone is born. There is no credible record of it ever having been successfully executed. One of the most widely known reports of human cloning is that of Clonaid and its supposed clone Eve born in 2002. Besides Eve, Clonaid claimed to have cloned 12 other people. These cases are not credible though since Clonaid would not agree to a DNA test between mother and child. Clonaid was established by a religious group called the Raelians in February 1997 (Clonaid).
The founder of the religious group, Claude Vorilhon or “Rael”, claims that the Raelian movement and Clonaid are “very different”; he cannot support any claims that Clonaid has made. Clonaid call themselves “pioneers in human cloning” and they claim their success rate in cloning is the same as other reproductive assisted techniques (Clonaid).
Clonaid may feel that cloning will become very important in the future, and it may be, or the negative dogma surrounding cloning may end it forever; maybe Dolly was the climax. We live in a world now where we are starting to return to natural things since our extravagant, unnatural living is costing us our lives and the lives of our posterity; this new “green” society may not accept artificial cloning. It is unlikely that cloning will disappear forever though; many scientists have put too much time and commitment into it for that to happen. It definitely seems as though Clonaid is not ready to give up any time soon. There are sure to be many more years of cloning history to come. We can almost be certain that this science that is a part of our past and present will stick around for our future.
There are plenty of reasons why the cloning should be authorized by governments, until now it is still illegal and here we will see a list of reason why the cloning would be a good thing for humanity. These reasons concern the quality of life of human being. Cloning has been invented in order to help people in there life. All the following example represent a non-exhaustive list of benefits for humanity.
“Human cloning technology could be used to reverse heart attacks. Scientists believe that they may be able to treat heart attack victims by cloning their healthy heart cells and injecting them into the areas of the heart that have been damaged. Heart disease is the number one killer in the United States and several other industrialized countries.” (Robby) The goal of cloning cells would be to cure heart diseases by injecting new cells in a sick heart. Those cells would be cloned from a person who would agree to have its own cells cloned. So it would be a specific treatment for a specific person and its own cells would not be used for someone else. This treatment would increase the life of the patient and the patient would not have to suffer of a heart attack.
“There has been a breakthrough with human stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can be grown to produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged ones. Skin for burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, spinal cord cells for quadriplegics and paraplegics, hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys could be produced. By combining this technology with human cloning technology it may be possible to produce needed tissue for suffering people that will be free of rejection by their immune systems. Conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart failure, degenerative joint disease, and other problems may be made curable if human cloning and its technology are not banned.” (Robby) Here in in this example it speaks about diseases that could be treated thanks to cloning. Because Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart failure, degenerative joint disease, and so on are diseases everybody might have to face later in our life. Everybody can be exposed to this sickness. Governments spend million of dollars for the research to cure those illness. But until now those same government rather closing there eyes in the suffering of million of people.
“With cloning, infertile couples could have children. Despite getting a fair amount of publicity in the news current treatments for infertility, in terms of percentages, are not very successful. One estimate is that current infertility treatments are less than 10 percent successful. Couples go through physically and emotionally painful procedures for a small chance of having children. Many couples run out of time and money without successfully having children. Human cloning could make it possible for many more infertile couples to have children than ever before possible.” (Robby) If the cloning would be a legal solution the infertility would be solved. Around the world million of women suffer of infertility, which affect there mental. In every culture the women is the symbol of the procreation and when a woman can have a child it kills her. Some of infertile woman has to use illegal solution like surrogate mother to have a child. Cloning would be a solution to avoid human traffic. The goal of cloning is also to make life possible, as everybody knows and feel, giving life is the most beautiful thing of the world but some of women cannot do that and some solution may exist if only our government would give a “yes” and relived those woman from this curse.
“Plastic, reconstructive, and cosmetic surgery. Because of human cloning and its technology the days of silicone breast implants and other cosmetic procedures that may cause immune disease should soon be over. With the new technology, instead of using materials foreign to the body for such procedures, doctors will be able to manufacture bone, fat, connective tissue, or cartilage that matches the patient’s tissues exactly. Anyone will able to have their appearance altered to their satisfaction without the leaking of silicone gel into their bodies or the other problems that occur with present day plastic surgery. Victims of terrible accidents that deform the face should now be able to have their features repaired with new, safer, technology. Limbs for amputees may be able to be regenerated.” (Robby) The life is not predictable, one day we can wake up and the hour after we could be burn by an accidental explosion, or hit by a car, which could put us on a wheel chair for life. Do we desire this? Everybody would say no, of course but does anybody think about it before being injured by life? The answer remains no. Accident in life happen everyday and for some of them no solution exist, but we now that it could be cured thanks to the cloning. Cloning would be a solution, cloning is not a game for scientist. It represents a real for solution for all people who suffer of a disease.
Whether playing God or playing Devil, I find this reason without any logic what so ever. Mankind is already "playing" God when we cure diseases, fly airplanes, create nuclear energy, or use any advanced technology. The first argument against cloning which appears is the religion many people believe in God. Catholic for example follows what the Pope said. The Pope banned cloning because he does not want to people “playing God”. Cloning is revealed as a true science, it is something we can see and touch but religion is made on books with not proof of the real existence of the God. There are so many different religion that we do not know which one we should choose. Whereas it exists one science we know and we can trust. If human is able to create thanks to the science so it means that it is the natural evolution of the human.
Cloning will permit to determine the gender, and in some societies the gender is very important for example in Japan having a boy is considerate as more important than having a girl. (Smith) So people against cloning thinks that people in those societies would be able to chose the gender. Yes it is a risk but with some regulations and laws against this abuse it would be impossible to clone a human being just for its gender. Anyway here is not the question because we are looking for the organ cloning not a human being.
Some people also some people want to ban human cloning because they believe this is the only method that homosexuals can have children that will most likely be homosexual too. I believe that this reason is caused by fear from ignorance and religion and therefore logically baseless. On the other hand, I believe that if same sex couples want a child, then adoption should be a better option as mentioned above. Again here the argument is about cloning a human being so the limitation should not concerned the organ cloning. But only the human cloning.
An other argument against cloning is about race, people are scared that one day we would be able to create human being and they imagine a new race of people that are docile with super strength yet low intelligence. Next, imagine how easily for this race to fall into slavery. Cloning humans should be for the advancement of mankind and not the lessening of individuals.
The process of human cloning increases the risk of harm to embryos and thus to the cloned person throughout their life. This reason is self-defeating; (Smith) because as scientists learn more, cloning humans has the possibility of becoming safer than naturally developing embryos by replacing randomized risks and genetic defects. Indeed scientist work in order to increase the life longevity, furthermore cloned organ a produced to avoid a transplant reject.
During the human cloning process, a lot of human embryos are created and tested for viability. Some are either discarded or frozen for future use. First, it is heavily debated if killing a human embryo that is only a few living cells is murdering a person. Nobody can think that argument will be defended because we are not planning to cloned human being but only the organ. Second, extra stem cells can be frozen, so they can avoid being killed too. Third, stem cells can also be used in stem cell research, and thus possibly save human lives. And finally with further research, it could be possible to decrease the number cloned cells and be used for a same patient to heal numerous diseases.
Cloning is banned from our society because of ethics. Who in earth never suffer, because he or she lost someone? A member of its family, a friend or someone from its acquaintance. Do we know what it is to lose the control of its own life? Do we imagine what it is lying on a bed suffering of an incurable disease? Should we wait until it comes to us? Should we wait until the death comes and take from us a person we love? Who are we to decide to let a person die? We know that we have responsibilities as human being. We are not untouchable by this kind of situation. We all should have the right to chose between cloning or not cloning. What is the matter for my neighbor is I want to clone my leaver? I think that as a human being if one day we have the opportunity to save lives thanks to this innovation it would help million of people. And it would resolve so many problems in the world. But this science needs laws and regulations. Governments can have a nuclear bomb; of course they do not use it as a toy. We should have the same regulation for it. This example is very radical but it explain the situation, on the first side governments agreed to use the most destructive weapon and in the other side the forbidden one of the best way to save human life. We just should try as we tried the nuclear weapon in the past. But here it would not be harmful for anybody.
Works Cited
University, Utah. Cloning. <htt://www.utah.edu/>.
Clonaid. Cloning . <http://www.clonaid.com >.
Phil. Human Cloning. <http://www.philforhumanity.com/Human_Cloning.html >.
Smith, Simon. Argument Against Cloning. <http://debatepedia.idebate.org/en/index.php/Argument:_Human_cloning_would_enable_infertile_couples_to_have_children >.
Robby. Benefits Of Cloning. <http://robby.nstemp.com/about.html>.
