Cloning Debate
Cloning is a process that has been debated
for decades, and all the arguments
are now coming to a head. The thought of
cloning has been around since the turn
of the century, but was not given much
publication until the genre of science
fiction pursued it in novels, comics,
magazines and television shows in the
mid-1950’s. When Dolly, a sheep, was
cloned, many people, including
scientists, religious leaders, politicians,
and common people, were held in
fascination as the cloning process was
explained to them on every major network
television channel. People watched
as the theory was put to use in certain
stages of sheep and frogs being
cloned. Many people also came to the realization
that cloning is a scientific
blight upon humanity, which should not be pursued
any further. Cloning will,
for the most part, degrade the ethics and civility of
humanity until the
population is either: a) no longer recognizably human, or b)
subjected to
various forms of barbarianism including slavery, mass production of"spare"
humans, and the coercement of the gene pool. Cloning, if stopped,
will leave
many resources free for other scientific pursuits that could better
humanity,
or raise the overall standard of living. The freed manpower could also
be put
to more useful scientific tasks, such as food manipulation, or
ecology
control. If the research of cloning is not stopped, the end result
could well be
a eugenics war, or the inevitable death of the most powerful
species on the
planet...humanity. Large majorities of people still presume
that cloning will
better society, and that the level of technological
improvement gained in the
short term justifies the few "minor" adjustments
that would accommodate the"new & improved" society. These same people
propagate the use of cloning
to harvest the extra bodies for needed body
parts, as opposed to people donating
parts, and having people who need the
organs sign a waiting list. Another
argument for cloning is that individuals
with desirable characteristics could be
cloned as substitutes; e.g., a strong
man could be cloned for construction
workers, a smart person could be cloned
for scientific R&D, a man with
musical ability could be cloned to help an
orchestra. None of the above-stated
arguments are compelling enough to merit
cloning as an ethical line of research.
The flaws included within each
pro-cloning statement are innumerable, but, due
to space constraints, only a
few will be mentioned. Harvesting bodies for organs
is one of the most
primitive and savage ideas ever put forth by human society,
especially
considering that we are eclipsing the twenty-first century. To waste
time and
manpower on an obviously immoral cause is despicable. To create a human
is to
care for and nourish it until it is ready to face the world on it’s
own.
If a clone wants to donate an organ it is entirely up to the clone,
not the
creator. It is similar to becoming impregnated and then selling the
baby to
science for dissection. Cloning people for various tasks originally
relegated to
the clonee is not unlike slavery in that the clone is given no
consideration as
to what it’s wants and desires are. As a society, people
should fell ashamed
to have put forth the proposition of creating slaves; how
is a clone’s rights
and privileges any different from the original person’s?
Clones should not be
considered to be of a lower standard than naturally
conceived humans are.
Having, hopefully, successfully refuted the
pro-cloning stance, it is time to
support the reasons for stopping cloning
research and implementation. To start,
the topics of clone/original
discrimination will be pursued, followed by the
topic of eugenics. When a
clone is created, the world will gaze in wonder, as
the marvel of
technological science is an exact replica of a human being, down
to the last
strand of hair. When the planet is teeming with clones, the world
will
whimper in fear as they see "unoriginal" humans taking what
precious
resources we have left. This will, in all likelihood, lead to a new
sort of
discrimination, in which clones are the ostracized group, and humans
are the"superiors." It will be reminiscent of former times when Blacks and
Indians
were treated with contempt and suffered ridicule. This is all on the
premise
that there will be more humans than clones, of course. If the planet
ends up
with more clones than humans, well, we originals are out of luck.
There’s no
other possibility. Every human being has in their genes the desire
to live, even
if it means at the expense of others. This want will encompass
both species
until one is wiped from the face of the Earth, or is kept under
such tight
control as to be considered objects. Eugenics is, in a nutshell,
attempting to
manipulate offspring by examining the genes of it’s parents. As
an example,
when a woman goes to the sperm bank for a donor, she is given the
statistics of
each donor’s abilities, including standardized intelligence,
strength,
mechanical comprehension, and what job they held when they donated.
If a woman
wants her child to be smart, she merely has to (hypothetically)
choose a donor
that is exceptionally intelligent, and hope that his DNA takes
effect in the
growing fetus. When applied to cloning, it is already known tat
we can clone,
and that we can splice DNA. It is a small step from those being
individual
sciences to using them in a combined effort to create a
"super-human." In
effect, as it has already been hypothesized, many world
leaders will probably
create an entire race of identical super-humans in an
attempt to better their
armies and instill fear in the rest of humanity. A
prophesized eugenics war
could take place in the near future, maybe 10-50
years from now, in which no
humans will be involved, except as prisoners or
hostages. To recap, cloning’s
benefits by no means justify the grave risks
associated by the pursuit of this
science, as it will likely end humanity’s
term of ruling this planet. Cloning
does have a few good possibilities, like
cloning individual organs for donation,
and cloning food for the hungry, but
cloning humans should be avoided like the
plague. Would you feel comfortable
knowing that, when you give a urine sample to
the doctor, they could likely
be giving the government the ability to clone you?
How would cloning
affect people’s personal morality? Likely, people’s
epistemology would change
from a deontological form to a consequential form.
Would you wish this
affliction upon humanity?