Should Human Cloning be Allowed?

Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Cloning: general outlook
3. Reasons against cloning
4. Conclusion

Introduction
Cloning is a topic, which provokes loud debates among scientists and ordinary members of the society. Fantastic pictures created by many generations of the fiction writers came to be more real than they have expected. Cloning isn’t a term from the fiction novel any more but a reality we have to meet and react accordingly. Rapid development of new technologies in this field put the question of cloning from the plane of mere moralizing to more practical plane. The cloning debate is especially strong during last several years and both sides give very convincing arguments pro and contra cloning.
Those, who support cloning, give many reasons about use it can bring to the mankind. Among the main reasons which should persuade wide public in the necessity to continue experiments and tests in the field of cloning they call great use of cloning for medicine as it give the opportunity to grow organs for transportation; wonderful chance for barren couples to have a child with DNA of one of the parents. Supporters of the cloning also depict a wonderful possibility to revive great scientists, inventors of the past and put the mankind into the new level with their help. Perspectives depicted by those who support cloning are very seducing but we should remember about the dangers hidden in the development of this new method of reproduction.
In my paper I will try to give reasons against cloning, as I believe that it’s necessary to perform much research and experiments before making cloning the part of our everyday life. In my papers I will try to give several group of reasons against cloning. These groups are moral and ethical, physiological, religious, technological and some others.
Cloning: general outlook
To get a better idea about the cloning, its advantages and disadvantages, we must get a better idea about the process, which is understood by this term. There are three different branches of development of cloning, which belong to different areas. Embryo cloning deals with the fertilization and includes technique, which gives possibility to recreate embryos. In this case fertilized embryos are reproduced and newborn babies will have absolutely identical DNA. This kind of cloning was used for cloning animals and only lately big step was made in this area in order to make it possible to use embryo cloning to help people who can not have children. A lot of research should be made in this field before embryo cloning will be used for human cloning. Another type of cloning is called reproductive cloning and assumes reproduction of grown animals. Famous ship Dolly was created using this method. One cell from the grown up creature is used to fertilize and create an embryo. This kind of cloning provokes big social resonance. There is much speculation about this topic. The most furious opponents of cloning describe terrible pictures of army of clones created with the help of this method. Reproductive cloning became the subject of concern of not only scientists, but also the politicians and was forbidden in many countries. This cloning wasn’t tested on humans yet. Moral and ethical side of this problem provoke a lot of debates in the modern society. In addition, experiments done on animals show big percentage of irreversible genetic changes in the cloned animals, which provokes additional concerns. Theoretically, this type of cloning lets to reproduce an exact copy of an alive grown up person.
Third type of cloning called therapeutic is used mainly in medicine. Another name for this type of cloning is biomedical cloning. This kind of cloning is used to create organs or tissues for transplantation. In this case new healthy organ is created from the DNA of the person in order to replace his or her ill organ. Theoretically, this technique can be much better than transplantation of organs from other people. Organs and tissues achieved with the help of biomedical cloning will be absolutely suitable for the patient as they would be created from his DNK, which would make them absolutely identical to the organs they replace. Using this method would allow to simplify the process of transplantation and to reduce its cost. It’s necessary to make a distinction between these three types of cloning as they serve to completely different goals and present different level of threat and should be judged differently.
Reasons against cloning
All these types of cloning get a completely different shade when we talk about humans. The most radical and conservative enemies of any kinds of cloning predict degradation of human race if cloning is ever used for humans. There is another big group of scientists who see cloning as a wonderful way to overcome many diseases, oldness and even death. “Most fear about human cloning stems from ignorance” they state and their opinion also has right to be heard.
Moral dilemma is the first issue, which comes to our mind when we start talking about cloning. Most religions organization don’t support cloning as they estimate it like actions against Divine plan and like those, which contradict God’s will. Religious figures state that God’s opinion is expressed in the Bible and this opinion definitely sentences cloning. There are passages in the Bible where it’s mentioned that human wish to liken to God will be punished severely.
It’s evident that cloning is an attempt to encroach on God’s power. Exile of Adam and Eva from the Garden of Eden and Babylonian tower show the results of human disobedience. I think that religion is an integral part of our life and it’s not possible not to take the opinion of the religious authorities into account. To believe or not to believe in God is our personal choice but we should consider opinion of those who do and for whom cloning can be absolutely unacceptable.
Cloning is a comparatively new phenomenon and scientists had too little time to study all the possible consequences and influences of cloning on living organisms. The risks of genes mutation isn’t studied in all detail yet. There is a possibility that genes taken from grown up person used to create an embryo will cause too early aging of the organism. There are results of the experiments, which scientists try to hide and these results show frightening facts. There is a big number of deviations during the cloning experiments hold on animals and in a number of cases cloning produces mutated creatures with different deviations from norm. All the modern devices used for diagnostics can not give 100% guarantees that all abnormalities will be diagnosed before the birth. It’s a common known fact that famous Dolly the sheep died of severe lung disease and suffered from many other diseases. There is a big probability that all these diseases were the result of cloning. When it comes to human we must take into account longer period of human life and that it must take at least 20 years to be sure in the safety of human cloning.
Moral issue becomes one more serious reason against human cloning. It’s hard to imagine what both - the parent whose DNA was used to make a clone and child feel during their interaction. First of all parent will see younger copy of himself or herself and it’s hard to predict possible reaction. Another problem arises for child when he knows exactly the way he will look in the future, the way he behaves, makes choices, etc. Another important problem arises when we think about another parent, who will see in the clone a copy of his beloved spouse who will be 20 years younger, in addition. Technically, there will be even no incest if they fall in love with each other, as clone doesn’t have same blood as any of the parents. These are only some of possible problems which can arise when in comes to moral issue. We also should consider that cloning isn’t an integral part of our society yet and cloned child can suffer from the negative attitude of the surrounding, which can also create serious problems for adaptation.
Moral issue puts another difficult dilemma in front of those who call cloning safe and reliable method of reproduction. We still do not have any regulations in this field and in controversial issues like this there is always a threat that innovation gets into the wrong hands and create more harms than use. I think that situation with nuclear weapon is a very bright example when great discoveries and innovations turned to be a terrible weapon against the whole mankind and became the object of speculation and great power of chosen countries and even individuals. Cloning sounds wonderful when we think about the people it could help but if we imagine the harm it can cause if gets into the wrong hands we can doubt even possible use it can bring.
Dr. Dixon, one of the prominent experts on the field of ethics of cloning is very harsh when expressing his opinion about the future of cloning adult people. He states that “The only reasons people want to clone are for selfish reasons. They are totally obsessed with their own right to have a clone or to clone dead relatives, without any regard to the welfare of the child, and this is the whole thrust of it.”
His radical position exaggerates the horrors and undermines possible use cloning can bring to the mankind but still we should consider the possibility that cloning can not become a dangerous weapon in the hands of separate individuals and will bring irreparable harm to the genetic fund of our the mankind. If we put aside moral issue and ethical concerns about the cloning we can see scientific arguments against it and these arguments are also important. It’s worth to underline one more time that there are too many unsuccessful efforts of cloning when embryos die or undergo irreparable genetic changes which make impossible their normal life and functioning. The process of evolution assumes natural selection and human interference within this process can break this fragile balance and finally stop the genetic improvements of the spices. Evolution or genetic improvements are possible only through natural reproduction as they assume the mixture of male and female genes, which become impossible during the process of cloning. For example, it took 227 attempts to get a famous Dolly the ship. These are the results of animals tests. Human organism, mind, psychics are much more complicated than those of animals and percentage of failure is respectably higher in the cases of human cloning.
Another scientific argument against cloning adduces those who consider genetic diversity to be one of the main way of evolutionary process. Cloning assumes using already existing types of DNA for new individuals, which will naturally stop creating new DNA patters as during the natural reproduction. It’s a common known fact that reduced DNA variations cause genetic mutations and defects. Cloning isn’t popular yet and it hasn’t become an integral part of our society yet and this problem sounds far-fetched and unreal but let’s imagine life on our planet in several centuries if using only the cloning instead of natural reproduction and we will understand the seriousness of the problem scientists predict today. From the practical reasons it’s easier of course to reproduce naturally but it’s hard to imagine the situation when people will know the possibility to create a new life without the difficulties caused by pregnancy, sufferings of childbirth, etc.

Conclusion
Cloning is definitely an innovative method of reproduction, which opens wide perspective in many branches of science. In can be used in medicine, agriculture, chemistry and many other sciences. But I think there must be done a lot of research and testing before it becomes a part of our life. I believe that those, who see only positive aspects of cloning and possible use it can bring, undermine the problems and complications it can cause if used thoughtlessly. Mutations, degradation and unpredictable and irreversible changes of the animals and humans produced with the help of this method of reproduction only the most significant problems it can cause. There are many others and only considerable study of all possible consequences and pros and contras must influence final decision in this field.

References

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