Fear Is an Emotion That Often Paralyzes

Fear is an emotion that often paralyzes people and fear of the unknown often precipitates irrational thoughts and behavior. One hot topic that illustrates this point is cloning. Many opponents to the subject of cloning are basing their arguments on fear. This fear is irrational and totally unfounded and extremely damaging to the cause of science. As a society, we are on a path that is leading us to embark on nothing short of fantastic discoveries and allowing fear to hinder this growth would be a dreadful mistake. Cloning is not bad or wrong -- the fear that accompanies it is.

Alun Anderson brings to mind several reasons why human cloning could be beneficial. One example can be seen in the couple who carries a recessive gene for disease. In this scenario, one of the parents cloning him or herself would remove the risk of their child being born diseased. Anderson notes that these parents "could be sure that the child would be healthy, and avoid prenatal testing and the subsequent agonizing decisions about whether or not to abort a baby afflicted by the genetic disease" (Anderson 59). Anderson points out that while the public might react strongly against a mother giving birth to her own twin, they do not react this way to twins or triplets. In short, it is an idea that we, as a society, are already accustomed to living with. Anderson also considers infertile women, who through in vitro fertilization would have a child born without any of her genetic makeup. He suggests that it would be "kinder -- perhaps even more natural . . . To allow the woman to give birth to a clone of herself" (60). There are no real reasons other than fear to prevent these families to have the families they desire. The fear for creating children for all the wrongs reason is not something solely attributed to cloning. Robert Wachbroit makes a succinct and sobering thought on this subject. He considers how many children are already born for "all sorts of frivolous and contemptible reasons" (Wachbroit 68). In other words, if we were to stop having babies for all the wrong reasons it would not begin with cloning, it would begin with women who have babies to get money and husbands.

Rudy Baum looks at the issue of cloning from another perspective, focusing on the very human nature of man. She points out, "playing God is what people do for a living" (Baum 72). Baum is honing in on an aspect of humanity that renders cloning inevitable, namely the fact that humans do play God whether they admit it or not. Her response to the argument against cloning forces her to conclude that the "moral outrage at this juncture strikes me as disingenuous given the history of human meddling in the biosphere, broadly defined to include ourselves" (72). Her argument forces us to realize that almost since the beginning of time, man has always sought to improve life and cloning is simply an extension of this very human behavior.

Gregory Pence agrees with the notion of irrational fear associated with cloning, noting that above all, it is simply unjustified. Pence maintains that a primary cause for such irrational fears is associated with horrible outcomes we often find science fiction stories and movies. As a result, society has been turned against good science with fictional bad science. Pence states, "we cannot allow such unreflected emotion to rule our lives" (Pence 5). Novels such as Brave New World and The Boys From Brazil have turned us against cloning without giving it a chance. Instead of introducing a positive aspect of cloning, we are presented with scenarios where the public fears "different forms of originating humans lead to eugenics which in turn leads to state-controlled breeding and the destruction of reproductive liberty in ordinary couples" (56). This is ridiculous because we should not only allow ourselves to be dictated by fiction but because we should also have enough faith in ourselves to might the right decisions when it comes to cloning.