Cloning Of Non Human Species example essay topic

1,273 words
As individual people and human beings, we are raised with family values. We are taught about the values of marriage, parenthood and respect. With today's technology and cultural diversity in America cloning will assist these values to rapidly diminish. Changes in the broader culture make it now vastly more difficult to express common and respectful understanding of procreation. Cloning is a fairly new and dangerous term that has become much more commonly used and practiced in America. Proponents of cloning believe that parents who want to clone a child, either to provide transplant for a dying child or to replace that of a lost one, should have this right.

Little do they know that the sacrificial benefit to the creator is by far cruel and evil. This is a violation of an individual's sanctity of life and many people's beliefs. We, as humans, have the capability to reason. Why are failing to see the cloning epidemics as something we have unleashed and may not be able to control in our future? Sterile individuals may look at cloning as a prescription to his or her affliction. What about the unborn child, does anyone consider it?

Even with a life threatening disease, we as humans cannot justify the moral implications of cloning. To harvest humans for their organs, solely for personal gain is inhuman and should not be allowed. People in today's society believe that it is right to bear a child purely for its organs. What will the effects be on that cloned child? The devastation of his or her psychological state would be detrimental. For all he knows, he is a child that was brought into this world simply used as a commodity like in cattle.

Will society treat the cloned child with the same respect as the original? It is an answer we cannot justify. But we are soon to learn the down falls if human cloning is allowed and practiced worldwide. It is straightforward; cloning is merely the making of an identical copy of another individual, basically replacing the meaning of procreation. The question shakes many souls. For humans to consider the cloning of one another forces them all to question what concepts are right and wrong?

The cloning of any specie, whether they are human or non-human, is ethically and morally wrong. Scientists and ethicist's alike have debated the implications of human and non-human cloning extensively since 1997 when scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland produced Dolly. Dolly was a goat that scientists cloned in a voyage to master cloning for human and other non-human species. It is very sad that today we are experimenting on species that our great aunt sisters relied on for their everyday meals. No direct conclusions have been drawn, but compelling arguments state that cloning of both human and non-human species results in harmful physical and psychological effects on both groups. Cloning of human beings would result in severe psychological effects in the cloned child.

The cloning of non-human species will subject them to unethical or moral treatment for human needs. The possible physical damage that could be done if human cloning becomes a reality is obvious when we look at the sheer loss of life that occurred before the birth of Dolly. Less than ten percent of the initial transfers survived to be healthy creatures. There were 277 trial implants of nuclei. Nineteen of those 277 were deemed healthy while the others were discarded. Five of those nineteen survived, but four of them died within ten days of birth of sever abnormalities.

Dolly was the only one to survive (Fact: Adler 1996). How can we allow scientists to advance in the cloning of humans when they can only successfully produce one out of every 277 healthy and stable nuclei? Even Ian Wilmot, one of the scientists accredited with the cloning phenomenon at the Roslin Institute agrees, "The more we interfere with reproduction, the more danger there is of going wrong". The psychological effects of cloning are less obvious, but nonetheless, very plausible. In addition to physical harms, there are worries about the psychological effects on cloned human children as well. One of those effects is the loss of identity and individuality.

Cloning forces humans to consider the definition of self. People like philosopher Hans Jonas suggest that humans have an inherent "right of ignorance" or a quality of "separateness". During the cloning process there is a time gap between the beginning of the lives of the earlier and later twin, is fundamentally different from homozygous twins that are born at the same time and have simultaneous beginning of their lives. Ignorance of the effect of one's genes and one's future is necessary for the spontaneous construction of life and self (Jonas 1974).

Human cloning is obviously damaging to both the family and the cloned child, although it is much harder to convince that non-human cloning is wrong and unethical, but it is just the same. The cloning of non-human species, subjects them to unethical treatment purely for human needs (Expert Opinion: Price 97). Western culture and tradition has long held the belief that the treatment of animals should be guided by different ethical standards them the treatment of humans. Animals have been seen as non-feeling and savage beasts since time began.

Humans in general have no problem with seeing animals as subjects to be used whenever it becomes necessary, but would never think twice about seeing a human as an object. What would happen if humans started to use animal's bodies for the growing of human organs? Where is the line drawn between human and non-human? If a primate were cloned so that it grew human lungs, liver, kidneys, and a heart, it would be extremely hard for us to determine what it would be. Imagine if we were to learn how to clone functioning brains to have they grow inside of chips.

Would non-human primates, such as chimpanzees, who carried one or more human genes via transgenic technology, be defined as still a chip, human, a subhuman, or something else? If defined as a human, we would have to give it rights of citizenship. And if humans were to carry non-human genetic genes, that would alter our definitions and treatment of them. Also, if the technology were to be so that scientists could transfer human genes into animals and vice-versa, that would heighten the danger of developing zoonoses that are transmitted from animals to humans, thus creating a worldwide catastrophe that no one would be able to stop or prevent. The ethical and moral implications of cloning are such that it would be wrong for the human race to support or advocate it. The sheer lose of life in both humans and non-humans are enough to prove that cloning would be a foolish endeavor, whatever the case.

It is simple, for our country to allow cloning to take place in human or non-human species would be ridiculous and incredibly insane. WE are surrounded with so many issues in our society that are overlooked everyday; poverty, and violence just to name a few, but instead we are more intoned with the cloning of humans and technological advancements that will completely demolish humane beliefs, morals and religious rearing of so many people.