So The Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then The Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:21-24).
I believe that over time God has given the human race many great skills in order to progress, skills such as: the power to fly, drive, harness electricity and communicate over long distances. These were all gifts from God in order to help make our stay on this earth a much more pleasant experience. However, creating life is not a power that a normal being can handle, with this power comes an enormous amount of responsibility, which will most likely result in immoral, unethical and illegal actions by the people who will have obtained this knowledge and power. In order to demonstrate this I will examine the reasons why cloning should be banned and made illegal. I will argue that cloning is unethical, scientifically unstable and has too many emotional risks attached to it to be legalized. I will support my argument through the use of: books on ethics, past researches and current events.
II. Ethical arguments against cloning
“Cloning is the creation of a being from the cell of another that produces a duplicate being with similar characteristics. The news of a human embryo being cloned for stem cell research and the surrounding controversy has prompted my examination of the subject.” (Bob Levin, Authors Notes) Much like religion, ethics is an aspect of life that a person is pretty much brought up with, yet there are many ethical matters that a person must learn as they study to become a professional in any given field and especially in the scientific field. In the following section, I will give you a brief overview on what scientific ethics is, some of the arguments for why cloning is unethical and some of the views from prominent researchers.
A. Introduction to scientific ethics Scientific ethics is basically the medium by which scientists must follow in order to not cause harm or unwell being to other creatures of this earth. It is for ethical reasons that many people protest the use of animals in testing. Many people feel that if there is any doubt as to what can happen to the cloned child then it is unethical to conduct this experiment on this being because he or she has not consented to the testing.
They feel this way because by scientific ethical standards a person must be explained the whole details of the experiment. If and only if that person has given you his/her full consent can any experiment be conducted on that person. So this once again brings me back to another fact about cloning. Doesn’t the fact that the child had no rights in the process, make it unethical? What happens if the child is psychologically harmed, objects to being a clone or feels as if he/she is a social outcast? These questions help to lead us into the next section: What are some more of the unethical issues concerning cloning humans?
B. Reasons why cloning is unethical Why is cloning so unethical? Well, there are actually many reasons why I feel this; some of the reasons, are the following: 1. Unsafe testing There have been cases in the use of cloning that have suggested that it is still a very unsafe practice, for example: during a somatic cell nuclear transplantation cloning, there has been signs of the fact that it is quite possible for embryos to be harmed and for the cloned child to be born with abnormalities (Vencor, 2001, p.315).
Professor Vencor also states that: “The Nuremberg Code established that research should avoid doing physical or psychological harm. If cloning were to be performed on human beings at present it would certainly breach that code.” (Vencor, 2001, p. 321) This means that under current ethical code, cloning a human is unethical and forbidden and he also goes on to say that: “Cloned animals show a high rate of abnormality or disability per live birth.”(Vencor, 2001, p.342) This once again demonstrates that the risks to be conducting these tests are too high.
If this is insufficient proof, there is more evidence proving that there is a substantial risk of embryos being harmed in experiments which are currently being used for the cloning of humans. In a report by the BBC, it is stated that: “The process of cloning inevitably involves throwing away some fertilized embryos and, at the current stage of development, many of the embryos selected to live fail to develop and eventually die before birth.” (Allen Bee, 2001, 2)
Finally, in another article written by Allen Bee, he states the two following comments: “For example, to produce a single live cloned sheep called ‘Dolly’, scientists had to create over 200 sheep embryos; all but one died were thrown away.”(Allen bee, 2001, 3) and “Abortion kills embryos, but human cloning creates embryos knowing that most of them will be killed.”(Allen bee, 2001, � 4) This all suggests that cloning experiments are unsafe.
I believe that if cloning were to be allowed, someone would almost certainly try to use this vast Godly power in order to create evil and chaos in the world. This can be justified by the writing of Dr. Patrick Dixon (1995), who states in his book: “what would Hitler have done with cloning technology if available in the 1940s? There are powerful leaders in every generation who will seek to abuse this technology for their own purposes. Going ahead with cloning technology makes this far more likely.” Although this might sound drastic, with a power as menacing as this one, it is quite possible for the wrong person to cause a lot of damage. What were to happen if an army of Super Soldiers were cloned and bred to destroy? Wouldn’t this be basically the same concept as that of the Germans during the days of the World Wars? This was basically their whole mission and, with cloning, we are going to make that mission easier for another man to attempt.
C. The different views of researchers
Through the years many researchers have had theories on whether or not genetics is ethical or not. It is a real toss up whether or not the benefits overcome the ethical issues, yet Professor David Suzuki and Professor Knudtson (1988) stated a principle which they call the Genetic Principle, the principle is as follows: “Genetic Principle: Genetic diversity, in both human and nonhuman species, is a precious planetary resource, and it is in our best interests to monitor and preserve that diversity.” What this principle is saying is that the diversity of mankind is one of mans and all species greatest assets. It is one the resources that mankind works as hard as possible to protect. This principle is in great danger of being abolished if cloning is allowed to happen because of the possibility of Eugenics and the mass producing of the same human.