Human Clone example essay topic

A clone is defined as a cell; group of cells, or organisms that are descended from a single original cell. Scientist Ian Wilmut can be credited with cloning the first mammal, Dolly the sheep, in February of 1997. From that point on ethical issues on cloning began to erupt. Many people are against cloning; then again many people are for human cloning.

I am personally not against human cloning and feel that human cloning should be explored. There are many misconceptions of human cloning today. One misconception according to Herbert, Shelter, and Watson is that, "A human clone would not be an exact copy of the person who provided its DNA, but rather would be sort of delayed identical twin, as much as a separate individual as any twin". This is an argument against human cloning and many argue this quote in their favor say that parents who wish to clone a deceased child will end up with a second child who appears to look like the first child yet differ in personality. Parents could possibly be traumatized and become depressed when they come to realize that their second is not an exact replica of the first born. Yet Ronald Bailey goes against this idea in his article "Research into Human Cloning Should Not be Banned".

He states, "What would a clone be? Well, he or she would be a complete human being who happens to share the same genes with another person. Today, we call such people identical twins. To my knowledge no one has argued that twins are immoral. Of course, cloned twins would not be the same age. But it is hard to see why this age difference might present an ethical problem -- or give clones a different moral status".

Lee Silver from the article "Human Cloning is Ethical" also fights the idea by stating, "But there is no reason to believe that her parents will be any more unreasonable than many other parents who expect their children to accomplish in their lives what they were unable to accomplish in their own. No one would argue that parents with such tendencies should be prohibited from having children". This quote knocks out those against cloning making arguments that a cloned child will be harmed by having to live up to their parents expectations. Now that the fact was stated that clones will basically be twins with a big age difference science critics and others like Jeremy Rifkin sound ridiculous when they make outrageous statements.

For example Rifkin states, "It's a horrendous crime to make a Xerox (copy) of someone". A catholic priest, Father Saunders, suggested that, "Cloning would only produce humanoids or androids -- soulless replicas of human beings that could be used as slaves". Yet again these people think clones will be robotic copies with a brain. Cloning can also be very productive in helping humans and animals. According to Wilmut, Campbell, and Tude, "Cloning could also be of immense, perhaps even critical, value in animal conservation". Richard Hull in his article "The Benefits of Human Cloning Outweigh the Risks", states, "But the more interesting possibility is that the development of cloning technology will be accompanied by mastery of the genetic code by which genes are turned on or off to sequence specialization.

It may be possible in the future to clone individual organs without having to employ the medium of the fetus. Such a process should be faster than a nine-month gestation, and the availability of artificial womb technology would make a possible enormously important advance in organ transplantation that would be free of the complications of immune system suppression necessary for transplanting genetically non-identical organs". In the end it just seems to be more reasonable to take the chance and venture in to human cloning. Many reasons why people are against human cloning are because they are fed many misconceptions which are understandable.

There is still much unknown about human cloning and we must explore. Human cloning can benefit humans emotionally, medically, and scientifically. We will never know unless we take a chance and venture in to the technology of human cloning..