Is Cloning Morally Correct? Should We Stand In the Way of Development?
Posted: Friday, March 13, 2009
by Connor Davidson
The below is an extract from one of my speeches on the subject of cloning.
Cloning is a highly controversial and heavily debated issue. It is the process of manufacturing a genetic of an organism with use of asexual reproduction. Cloning has been successfully undertaken before on animals before the most famous of which is Dolly the sheep. Cloning is a subject which is not entirely morally or ethically sound in many peoples eyes but we have to remember that morals and ethics vary person to person, resulting in many different opinions. Personally I feel there is many advantages and many disadvantages which in my mind clash.
Firstly, we must consider the advantages before we become blinded by the disadvantages and our own pessimism. The first argument - could prove a natural justification for cloning; it is that nature creates clones of its own accord. Identical twins (monozygotic twins) are in effect clones. This, compiled with the statistical evidence, proves an effective argument. Identical twins work to the tune of 3.5- 4 births per thousand. This proves that cloning will only ever be a scaled up version of a natural process.
It is also of note that clones have there implications in medical experimentation as they would prove excellent Guinea Pigs' for valuable medical research. That hopefully would help to find the cure for certain diseases.
Anyway, we already play god' for example in vitro* fertilization which is now commonly regarded as acceptable, but when introduced they were an intrusion on people's morals. Furthermore, if cloning were to be introduced on humans then I would reckon there would be initial hostility but like in vitro fertilization it will be considered acceptable in time. Another medical argument is clones could be used for transplants and blood transfusions which would compensate for the shortage of donors. There is the possibility clones could be adopted: because there is a severe shortage of babies up for adoption since abortion was legalized in the 1960's. This also would allow infertile couples to have biological children. Finally, clones could be integrated into society because there is no way to easily distinguish a cloned person from a normal' person.
Now that we have considered the advantages we must now consider the disadvantages and the converses of the advantages. The greatest impediment is one of moral significance. Cloning is quite often an intrusion on people's morals, furthermore to religious pureitists of certain religions cloning would be considered blasphemous. Because of this, it is rather unlikely any influential political party will risk there integrity by acknowledging cloning, primarily by the incredible opposition. Coming back to a previous point - human experimentation is extremely improbable predominantly because almost no political ideology would destroy there reputation by allowing human experimentation.
Overall society, in all of its wisdom can not accept people of another race or religion. These relatively minor differences could spark fundamentalism. So what will cloning spark? Could our society cope?
Well these are my views on cloning. I would love to hear your views. Post them as comments and we can argue over the issue and possibly reach some form of agreement.
* In vitro - describing biological process that are made to occur outisde the living body, in laboratory apparatus.
Cloning is a highly controversial and heavily debated issue. It is the process of manufacturing a genetic of an organism with use of asexual reproduction. Cloning has been successfully undertaken before on animals before the most famous of which is Dolly the sheep. Cloning is a subject which is not entirely morally or ethically sound in many peoples eyes but we have to remember that morals and ethics vary person to person, resulting in many different opinions. Personally I feel there is many advantages and many disadvantages which in my mind clash.
It is also of note that clones have there implications in medical experimentation as they would prove excellent Guinea Pigs' for valuable medical research. That hopefully would help to find the cure for certain diseases.
Anyway, we already play god' for example in vitro* fertilization which is now commonly regarded as acceptable, but when introduced they were an intrusion on people's morals. Furthermore, if cloning were to be introduced on humans then I would reckon there would be initial hostility but like in vitro fertilization it will be considered acceptable in time. Another medical argument is clones could be used for transplants and blood transfusions which would compensate for the shortage of donors. There is the possibility clones could be adopted: because there is a severe shortage of babies up for adoption since abortion was legalized in the 1960's. This also would allow infertile couples to have biological children. Finally, clones could be integrated into society because there is no way to easily distinguish a cloned person from a normal' person.
Now that we have considered the advantages we must now consider the disadvantages and the converses of the advantages. The greatest impediment is one of moral significance. Cloning is quite often an intrusion on people's morals, furthermore to religious pureitists of certain religions cloning would be considered blasphemous. Because of this, it is rather unlikely any influential political party will risk there integrity by acknowledging cloning, primarily by the incredible opposition. Coming back to a previous point - human experimentation is extremely improbable predominantly because almost no political ideology would destroy there reputation by allowing human experimentation.
Overall society, in all of its wisdom can not accept people of another race or religion. These relatively minor differences could spark fundamentalism. So what will cloning spark? Could our society cope?
Well these are my views on cloning. I would love to hear your views. Post them as comments and we can argue over the issue and possibly reach some form of agreement.
* In vitro - describing biological process that are made to occur outisde the living body, in laboratory apparatus.
Connor Davidson 3/13/09
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More commentsMr. Davidson,A great informative article and well written one, but sorry I do not agree with cloning. It is defying God's law. Now you may say Does God exist and what law. But I would say simply that life is for once and it should be lived meaningfuly. No matter what achivements we may have made but as humas we are limited. I consider cloning similar to the construction of tower of Bable.Sorry if I have offended you. That was not my intention.with best regards,SwapnaCloning is a very controversial issue. I was stating my opinion as a man involved in science. I understand that may people do disagree with me and one must accept that.An answer can only truely be reached when all opinions are considerd.
I don't think I am qualified to give much of an opinion on this subject, suffice to say that it somehow seems that we are reducing human dignity it to the level of animals; simple creations for our own selfish purposes. We must keep in mind, that if cloning of humans ever became 'the norm', that these are people, not products.I agree with you on that.
Connor an article which has many answers and I dare to say few will agree. Good job though. I'll stay away from answering because most already know my position.
I can tell you that the "mistakes" I see from non-cloned births would be nothing compared to "mistakes" by cloning "experts." Science is never as precise as they would like, hardly so. Still, I would not be surprised to find out some trillionaire has such experiments in their basement labs. But that could just gbe my sci-fi mind in overdrive. Your article was very good, very interesting.
Its morally not correct. Good article...But what if evolution didn't go our way and we could not reproduce? What if we could only survive by cloning? Would you consider it then?First of all evolution is just a theory, not proved or it has any truth in it. We reproduce because of God's natural way of reproduction. Cloning is wrong & will be wrong anyway.OK. Sorry to be blunt. However I would like to pose this hypothetical scenario. If the human race was certain to end, would you even consider cloning?In a Christian's life hypothesis doesn't work friend. The end of human race will be soon when Christ will come back again (the 2nd coming).You sound so matter of fact - I find how you force your ideas quite rude.You sound so matter of fact - I find how you force your ideas quite rude.
Good article, Connor. I for one, am against cloning. I think the world can be over-populated without the help of cloning. There are very few people in the world that the world would need two (or more) of anyway. DNA forensics would have to come up with new formulas, that's for certain.Have a great day.SandraDo you think we should - at least - have the technology even if we never use it?
Connor,Certainly an interesting article. While I can see those in our previous governments being against this, when the time comes, I am confident the US government today would whole-heartedly agree to cloning in all situations. Just give them the chance to vote on it and Voila, it too shall pass!While the founding of America as a Judeo-Christian culture is quickly losing ground, you can see that religion is no longer playing a part in the ideology of this country, not does it in England. The English haven't attended church in years!I would like to think the Pope would put his foot down on this one but then again, did he tell Nancy Pelosi that he was against abortion and contraception?Nancy
Yes it is. All those godly people are wired. If we didn't have coning there would be no point. We need to find a way to bring back extinct animals...That is a very good point. Mabye we could use cloning to bring back animals. Thanks.
Great article
Well Done con cons!Thanks for the comment.
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