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...
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…
