Banning on human and organ cloning is posing a problem on those educated ones inacademia. Researcher and scientist Dr. Ian Wilmut has successfully cloned asheep, and has gathered from this experiment evidence that strongly proves thathuman and organ cloning could be performed safely and effectively. Unfortunately, our government has almost immediately banned such cloning in thiscountry. Did they realize the benefits of such a discovery? Perhaps they simplybelieve that it is some sort of unethical, immoral experiment that is notbeneficial to our society. Perhaps they should take a closer look at exactlywhat these researchers have derived from years of experimenting.
In this paper,I will propose a possible plan to persuade our government to take another lookat human and organ cloning. Many positive benefits could come out of this, andit is our responsibility, for the sake of a healthier future, to push policymakers to change their minds and loosen their grips on such a banning. Cloningof various organisms has been going on for years. This concept of cloning wasconceived in 1938, but it was not until 1994 that a method using an embryo wasused to clone a cow (Business Week). Much to many peoples surprise, the ideaof cloning humans is not an aged concept.
It is fairly new, but that hardlymeans that the amount, or rather quality, of research to support safe humanand/or organ cloning, is poor. This bioethical issue is quite debatable, and ithas caused further debate, especially after the March 4, 1997 banning of the useof federal funds for research leading to human cloning (Time). The governmentwas pressured. Due to time restrictions, they had to make a challenging decisionon whether or not to ban human cloning in the United States. Their ruling hasleft a large number of researchers and curious citizens alike in a cloud ofconfusion.
My solution to the problem is this: an elaboration on the history,technique, ethics, and reasons for researching the technology of cloning isnecessary. Our government must be further educated on this issue. Lets take alook at how to go about proving this solution. The first thing that must becleared up for the government and for all those who believe otherwise, is whatis cloning, and what is a clone. A clone is an organism derived asexually from asingle individual by cutting, bulbs, tubers, fission, or parthenogenesisreproduction (Cloning, 11).
The biological term “cloning” is the productionof a genetically identical duplicate of an organism. In the world of scientifictechnology, these exact definitions mean the difference between falsepremonitions of cloning, and the real-life phenomenon of good, ethical cloning. Let me pose an interesting idea for you. Human cloning already happens byaccident. Monozygotic twins, or identical twins, are clones of each other they have the same exact genetic information due to the division of an embryo indevelopment, which produces two identical embryos.
A human clone is really justa time-delayed identical twin of another person. The government doesnt banthe birth of identical twins, does it? It is unheard of to think that identicaltwins are zombies without souls or personalities. So how can the advances inscience having to do with cloning organisms be so rash in their moral andethical implications? The government should take a closer look at this marvel. Is this hypocrisy? You decide.
An important issue that could be resolved isinfertility. Infertile couples could have children with human cloning. OnSaturday, October 17, 1996, the Board of Directors of RESOLVE of NorthernCalifornia adopted a resolution and policy statement saying that cloning mayoffer infertile individuals a legitimate way of forming families, that theysupport research to make human cloning safe and effective, and that they opposegovernmental efforts to deny infertility patients the option to use cloningtechnology to have children (HCF). Many infertility patients have tested withvarious forms of treatment, some which are not exactly the safest, and many haveproved unsuccessful. This cloning method is safe and with more research, has thepotential of high success rates.
This is factual information based on research. With so much support for human cloning, how did the policy makers decide againstit’step by step the technology to clone people is advancing. Of course, theprocedures and applications have not been perfected, but many clinics in theU. S. already have the equipment to start cloning.
Many fear that theseinstitutions may try to do something before the levels of risk are reduced to anacceptable standard. President Clinton only put a ban on such experimentationfor five years, which means that thereafter the ban will be expired and humancloning may have another chance at production (Business Week). But why did theydecide upon this in the first place’scientists need to research human cloningfor the future. In five years, when they are ready to prove to the world thatthey are finally ready and advanced enough to start cloning humans, due to thelack of decent government funding, they will be unable to provide accurate data. Once again, senate will reject the idea, and such projects will be furtherdelayed. So what is the answer to this bizarre cycle? The government must fundresearch and experimentation to allow scientists to clone humans.
They need totake another look at these simple facts and realize that in order for theperfection of human cloning procedures to occur, large amounts of funding musttake place. This funding needs to come from our government. In this society,where everyone is out to be an individual, the line between what is moral andwhat is immoral is very distorted. I, Carlos Ortiz, a twenty-year-old collegestudent, have been researching this matter for approximately a month. Afterreading through just a few internet sources, outlining two or three books on thesubject of cloning, and writing one single research paper on the benefits ofhuman and organ cloning, I have become so educated on the subject of cloning.
Not only have I learned a great deal on this much debated bioethical issue, butI have also grown an interest for cloning possibilities and formed a strongopinion on this topic. Throughout my explorations in the past month, I have comeacross unbelievable amounts of studies, papers, and websites devoted to provingthe benefits of human cloning. This procedure is only here to benefit the humanrace. How is it that we have so much information proving the beneficial aspectsof human cloning, yet our government so harshly voted against it? In a nutshell,it is due to the lack of knowledge. We need to educate these people. Modern dayscientists must keep working at trying to convince the government and oursociety that human cloning will not endanger the human race.
They must keepworking at discovering new and interesting data to support these beliefs. Wemust educate those who are ignorant to these beliefs, and demonstrate for themhow much our society actually has to gain from this scientific phenomenon. If wedo not take advantage of human cloning, then we might never know what we mighthave benefited from. The best approach is to provide positive theory to ourpolicy makers, and prove to them how this procedure can be perfected.
With theirfunding and support, we can research the consequences, alter them if they areharmful, and allow the future of the human race to benefit from a trulymagnificent discovery human cloning. Bibliography”Human Cloning. ” Business Week. 10 August 1998: 32-33 “HumanCloning. ” Time.
09 February 1998: 81-96 “Human Cloning Foundation. ” 2February 1998 http://www. humancloning. org/ Winters, Paul A. “Cloning.” SanDiego: Greenhaven Press
