¶ … agree with President Bush's ethical opposition to all human cloning? Should cloning only be used for therapeutic purposes or not at all? Does every person have the right to reproduction, even lesbians or gay men through the use of cloning? The paper will be in the first person narrative.
Human Cloning
The successful cloning of Dolly, an adult sheep in the recent past, can be seen as one of the biggest advancements in science today. And even more dramatic is the news of the world's first cloned baby Eve, as announced by Brigitte Boisselier (of Clonaid) led by a bunch of UFO worshippers who call themselves the Raelians. However, the dramatic achievement of human cloning has simultaneously raised many issues. Is it ethical to clone a human being? Is it religiously correct? Is it morally viable? Is it legally acceptable? Somehow, human cloning has become a major public issue with politicians, students, scientists, and leaders; more or less everyone having a certain point-of-view different from the other.
The possibility of human cloning brings with it many questions and many apprehensions. Some fear that a clone would not be an individual in himself or herself but instead would merely be a duplicate of the original having no identity of its own whatsoever. Others fear the exploitation scientists can take up to create human beings with more perfection or with more "impossible" personality traits which might not be easy to achieve in a regular human being. Somehow, for the common man, the concept of manufacturing human beings is somewhat repulsive and brings out aggressive reactions from most people who have a brain with which to think!
A personally find the concept of human cloning as repulsive as many others. Life after all, should not be genetically engineered. It should not be converted into a science fiction movie. After all, who knows when an army of Hitlers and Stalins...
Moreover, who is going to be controlling the kind of clones or the number of clones being created? And if you look at it from the clone's perspective as well (though even the thought is severely irritating), what are the clones' rights and interests? What authority does he have over his life or his personality? He is after all just a creation and that too not by God but by mere mortals.
Another argument I have against human cloning is the extent of risk involved. Dolly is a sheep. Animals have forever been used as guinea pigs for scientific games. But humans? Who takes the responsibility for any biological damage or mutation? Who accounts for losses of cloned humans; they are after human aren't they? Secondly, lets just assume for now that the scientists work out the perfect technique with almost negligible chances of failure, who can then control who is cloned, how many are cloned and dare I say WHAT is cloned? And who can then stop public demands to create a clone with this characteristic or that? Who can stop public expectations to create the perfect child who grows up to be the perfect man or woman? Who answers all these questions?
Lets just take it from our own point-of-view. Would you or let's say would I like to have a genetically engineered clone just like me? No I would not! Would you? And if such a clone is created, how can I be sure what limitations it has? How can I control someone exactly like me doing whatever comes to his mind or whatever is put in his mind for that matter? Why should I even allow such a thing to exist? Its morally, ethically, socially, religiously and from every other aspect that I can think of, wrong! Think of…
