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Cloning
People have come on different sides of the philosophical divide when the topic of human cloning is brought up. Dolly the sheep was the first mammal cloned -- Dolly is now dead. Also the Raelians (known to believe that we are descended from aliens) have talked about the first (allegedly) human baby already having been cloned. In his essay: "Genetic Encores: The Ethics of Human Cloning," Robert Wachbroit, is supportive of Human Cloning. He attempts to debunk various points of objections from those against cloning. Robert Wachbroit avers that cloning must be considered in its own right. He believes that most people confuse it with a technology of genetic manipulation -- playing with the laws of nature.
Wachbroit disagrees with those who claim that clones are carbon copies of a person. He declares that clones are separate living beings with independent existence. Clones don't think alike and their experiences would be different. He also believes that the environment and experiences have a lot to do with how a person develops. Wachbroit tries to allay fears that cloning would create a mass-production of babies (perhaps engineered for evil) by decrying them as the figments of science fiction. A human takes 18 years to grow; it would be cheaper to...
A human being brought up as a clone would possibly suffer from expectations. Such a person would suffer a sense of loss of individuality. But these are problems faced by kids under normal circumstance with normal parents. A cloned human would suffer from an idea that he or she was not a real person. Wachbroit argues that this is no different than if the child was conceived by in vitro fertilization.
Wachbroit does voice some concerns that the risks associated with cloning were the experimental and nascent at best. Failure rates were very high. Also Dolly died from complications without going through a sheep's entire lifetime. There is a risk with humans and failed experiments. The author believes that rather than public outcry driving the movement underground without recourse to regulations is counter-productive. The whole debate and research should be out in the open in the interests of true progress.
Supporters of cloning do so as a means to extend the progress of reproduction. Couples who cannot have children -- in case of sterility and for homosexual couples…
), Severino Antinori (a fertility expert from Italy enabled a 62-year-old woman have a baby) and Lee Silver (molecular biologist and professor of genetics at Princeton University) are some experts that are cloning's main proponents. With the debate on cloning, there is an air of inevitability: no matter what the debate, cloning will proceed. Also, the convictions of the people on different sides of the issues are so firmly rooted,
Cloning is among the feats in science that many of us, as part of our childish character, ideas, and imaginations, have only visualized before. We used to say in our mind, "what would happen if we create someone who is an exact duplicate of ourselves?" Again we say, "how convenient it would be to have that someone do the things we don't want to do." Or, "have that someone face the
Cloning The debate about human cloning was carried out within the field of science fiction and fantasy, until recently. With the victorious cloning of the sheep Dolly in 1997, it became obvious that earlier or later, scientists might be able to clone human beings too. There is both encouragement and disagreement for this likelihood. Though cloning has been explained by newspapers and magazines as an exhilarating step onward that allows genetic
Experiments in the late nineteenth century on frogs provided the groundwork for cloning (McKinnell 9-10). The method used a decade ago for the successful nuclear transplantation in amphibians required that the egg be enucleated, which meant removing the maternal hereditary material contained in the egg nucleus. Other hereditary material contained in the nucleus from a body cell would then be placed in the enucleated egg, and the resulting clone would
"Animals that are experiencing dwindling numbers could be cloned to prevent their extinction. Taiwanese scientists claimed to have made five clones of an endangered pig to save this species" (Anonymous). While some say man should not play God there are others like Edmund Erde who disagree and say that "playing God" is a phrase that is "muddle-headed" and "nonsensical" and should be deserted (Edmund Erde, p.594). For those who
Cloning has been a hot issue in the news media in recent years. Many feel that it is a good idea and that there could be many benefits to mankind. However, there are those who feel that the issue is beyond our human capabilities and that we are playing with fire. There have been many surveys conducted on public opinion concerning the issue. Some of the studies have been