Cloning And Life
Is cloning necessary for advancements in improving the quality of life?
Is
cloning necessary for advancements in improving the quality of life?
People
often question whether or not we as a scientific nation are trying to
play the
role of God. Many people say that we should not try to interfere
with nature.
That is fine if in everyday life we did not try to change
our habitat every
single second of every single day. More than likely at one
point and time the
land on which your house sits was covered by a pasture of
woodlands. That is
interference. If we try to clone organs for transplant
patients that are in
their final hour then we are actually improving their
life. If improvement in
the quality of life is playing God, then is that
necessarily a bad thing? Do we
have the right to clone? We are all guaranteed
rights by the fact that we are
human beings. Those rights include the right
to pursue areas of scientific
study. Not many people vocalized his or her
disapproval of space exploration. At
the time that there was no talk of how
morally wrong Neil Armstrong’s walk on
the moon was going to be. They could
have argued the fact we are created on
earth we must stay here and not
interfere with things beyond our comprehension.
If they did, and the
program did not lift off, then we would not have some of
the technologies
that we have today. Cloning can only yield new technologies
that will be
beneficial to society. One misconception that many people have is
that this
technology can fall into the "wrong hands". We could not
clone a person of
history to be the same person that he or she was before. If we
were to do
that then it would be near impossible to reproduce the same
character. They
would like any other ordinary human; they would be conceived,
developed, and
then born as all other babies. They would have the same
appearance and
genetic makeup as their equal. This does not mean that they would
have the
same mental capacity as their previous life. There are many things that
lead
to a human’s personality. Genetic makeup does not have as significant
role as
many believe. Organ cloning is something that would be extremely
beneficial
to society. Imagine the ability to "create" a liver for a
child that has less
than a month to live. In the medical profession the
philosophy of every
doctor is to "improve the quality of life". Is giving a
child a second chance
improving the quality of life? Or is it playing God?
Imagine if the
technology was available to clone his liver in order to prolong
his life. In
this country there are thousands of people on waiting lists to
receive new
organs that will help prolong their life. Many of these people will
die
because there is not a suitable donor that matches their needs. Imagine
the
lives that will be saved if an individual can clone their own liver, or
any
other organ that is needed to survive an illness. As much as cloning
is
perceived as a good thing, it could change life to an entire new
civilization.
Cloning runs the risk of creating a population that is
entirely the same. This
population would be susceptible to the same diseases,
and one disease could
devastate the entire population. One can easily picture
humans being wiped out
be a single virus, but more events could occur from a
lack of genetic diversity.
For example, if a large percentage of a
nation's cattle are identical clones, a
single virus could effect the entire
population. The result could be large food
shortage in the United States. Any
research into human cloning would eventually
need to be tested on human. The
ability to clone humans may lead to the genetic
tailoring of offspring. The
heart of the cloning debate is concerned with the
genetic management of a
human embryo before it begins development. It is
conceivable that scientists
could alter a baby's genetic codes to give the
individual a certain color of
eyes or genetic resistance to certain diseases.
This is viewed as
inappropriate, some look at it as playing God. Cloning might
be used to
create a "perfect human," or one with above normal strength
and sub-normal
intelligence, a genetic underclass. Also, if cloning were
perfected in
humans, there would be no genetic need for men. As in the book, A
Brave
New World, they cloned people into classes that made an entire society
of
genetic humans that resembled nothing less than an ant-farm. In the Alpha
Class
the cloning conditioned one to have a great life just like the queen
ant having
hundreds protect her. Or in the Epsilon Class being conditioned to
think that
being a janitor is a good thing or the equivalent to a worker ant.
They go about
their work as if it’s the best work possible. By creating the
perfect clone
and knowing the fact that men could be eliminated from
existence is playing God.
Cloning might have a detrimental effect on
domestic relationships. A child born
from an adult DNA cloning of his father
could be considered a delayed identical
twin of one of his parents. It is
unknown as to how a human might react if he or
she knew he or she was an
exact duplicate of an older individual. Researchers
say that within 5 years a
pill that will help prevent cancer will be introduced
on the market. That is
great if you do not already have it. If we find the gene
that has been
mutated then we will be able to correct that, alleviating all of
the signs of
the cancer. Cloning will change the face of the planet forever. We
should be
excited that we are able to duplicate such a complex sequence of
genes.
Whatever you feel is morally right we should allow this to happen because
if
we never explore the risks then we can never enjoy the benefits.
As
previously stated the space exploration yielded many new technologies that
will
forever aid in the bettering of society. We cannot continue to prohibit
the
exploration of scientific study. If this practice continues then we will
not be
able to continue to develop advancements in the prolonging of the
human species.
We can't impose a ban on cloning, if we do then who is to
say that we will not
impose a ban on the research that will hopefully one day
lead to a cure for
cancer.