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Author
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Topic: Human cloning
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humble learner
Member
Member # 952
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posted 21. October 2003 04:43
I know this topic is quite old and should have been discussed a lot of times. However, it is not out-dated, and it still holds a very significant ethical question waiting for a reasonable judgement in front of the face of humanity.
Article # 1 (argument for cloning)
Unsettling, Maybe, but not unethical
I am a twin - no big deal, really. my other half is my sister, and so we are fraternal twins, no different from ordinary siblings, except that we conceived at the same time. Still, I know from a lifetime of experience that just to say 'i am a twin" causes people to take a step back. They are in the presence of "the different."
This being the case, I can easily understand how people feel about cloning. It gives us all "the creeps," and we recoil from it as unnatural, an affront to God, or just plain weird. Yet a form of cloning already exists in nature: identical twins. Identical twins are a genetic match of each other - no different in this sense from a clone produced from the genetic material of a dead sibling. The difference is that one is produced in nature, the other in a lab.
The distinction is not, I grant you, insignificant. It raises all sorts of questions. However, these questions ought to be debated and studied - and not dismissed without question, as is the intention of many politicans, religious leaders and conservatives intellectuals who would, if they could, close the tap on cloning.
But stopping cloning cannot, now, be done. Some government may pass bills banning all sorts of cloning, but many parts of the world will still permit research in cloning to continue. Women desperate for a child will simply go elsewhere cloning is either legal or merely tolerated - and come back pregnant. there is, as far as i know, no law banning pregnant women from entering countries.
The word that keeps being attached to cloning is "unethical." It is a powerful word, but in the case of cloning, it is merely asserted - never proved. It just so happens that at the moment, cloning is unethical because the procedure is still experimental - and you don't go skinny-dipping in the gene pool. But someday, the procedure will not be all that risky. What, then, would make cloning unethical?
Nothing. It would be just another form of reproduction. Moreover, while cloning probably will always involve some risk, so too does the usual method of reproduction.
This is the bravest of new worlds. And it will require some brave, new thinking. Terms like "ethical" and "human dignity" simply cloud the debate. In the debate on cloning - even cloning designed to produce cures for diseases that are now incurable - the same old overwrought, emotionally coloured language is used, but it is very narrow and limiting language. Science is forced into medical back alleys by politicans who utter oaths to "ethics," when their true allegiance is to tradition. We cannot permit our fear of "the different" to produce a retreat from gaining greater knowledge about cloning which could perhaps save or enrich lives. Now that would be unethical.
(Adapted from a 2003 Washington Post article.)
Article # 2 (argument against cloning)
A threat to the future of humanity
As the world still waits for scienific confirmation that a group of scienists (funded by a weird cult named Raelians) have created the world's first human clone, much attention has been paid to just how odd the group is. And rightly so. However, the weirdness of the Raelians should not be allowed to obscure the wider mission they share with other self-proclaimed pioneers on the human genetic frontier - people who, though cloaked in science instead of sectarianism, foresee remaking human beings in ways that make the genesis of baby Eve seem almost innocent.
Robert lanza, for instance, a vice president at Advanced Cell Technology, called the Raelian announcement "appalling," "irresponsible," and "a sad day for science." Yet Lanza, two years ago, predicted that soon we would not just be cloning children, but genetically enhancing them: "We're close to being able to add 20 or 30 IQ points, and an equivalent boost of their muscle mass" to embryos, he said, adding "who among us wouldn't say 'yes.'"
His boss at Advanced Cell Technology, Micheal West, has acknowledged to many interviewers that his real goal is phyical immortality. We can imagine, he says, "body components one by one each made young by cloning. Then our body would be made young again segmentally, like an antique car is restored by exchanging failing components." Should this lead to planetary overcrowding, well, "The answer is clearly to limit new entrants to the human race, not to promote the death of those enjoying the gift of life today."
And These are not isolated examples. Even famous geneticist James Watson, who will celebrate the 50th anniversary of his co-discovery of the double helixthis spring, has advocated genetic manipulation to ensure that people aren't born "stupid" or "ugly" or "cold fish."
Understanding this kind of genetic "grandstanding" to key to making sensible political decisions in the years ahead. As a practical matter, cloning would be a necessary step towards genetic manipulation of embryos - towards adding IQ or muscle mass or, as other researchers have speculated, a host of behavioural and emotional traits. Similiar work has already been carried out on a range of other animals. The threat posed to human species and to our societies by such work is immense.
Some researchers, like Lanza and West, now say they seek not to clone children but merely to harvest stem cell from cloned embryos for use in treating Parkinson's and other diseases. There is no guarantee, though, that such stem-cell work will not inadvertenly ease the work of "baby cloners" or of those who would "enhence" human embryos by altering their minds, bodies, or personalities. We must come to understand the treat these new technologies pose to the future of humanity. It is crucial that the scienific community repudiates the appalling notion that we should "improve" the species through genetic tinkering.
(adapted from a 2003 Washington Post article.)
*Encourage to post your own statements(agree or disgree or others)and ideas and please support them with sufficient information, evidence, or and detailed explanation.
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Rex Kerr
Member
Member # 632
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posted 21. October 2003 23:02
In the Washington Post, was there any more to the second article than was presented? It never really says why it is problematic to use genetic engineering to help ensure one's offspring are healthy, intelligent, attractive, etc.. Given the amount that we spend on education, exercise, and cosmetics, one would think that these goals are all desirable.
There must be a better argument against than some weird straw man/ad hominem combination involving the Raelians.
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