Risk Of Harm To A Cloned Human example essay topic

874 words
Let's Make the World a No-Clone Zone "Let's Make the World a No-Clone Zone" is a very straightforward and powerful article which lists many reasons why anything and everything about cloning should be illegal. In her article Therese M. Lysaught acknowledges there is plenty of factual information or counter evidence that her opposition might use to fight her argument. Her purpose for writing this article is to get it set in peoples minds that cloning is morally and ethically wrong and should be banned completely. At the start of the article Therese has a very good thesis; "Banning the use of cloning to create babies doesn't go far enough, Even so-called 'therapeutic' or 'research' cloning involves the destruction of human embryos and therefore is not only problematic, but also immoral" (Lysaught par 1). The thesis sets out her argument and lures the reader in with her powerful word choice and her appeal to emotion. Even if the readers already disagreed with the title they would be so intrigued by her well-written thesis they would have no choice but to just keep on reading.

Therese Lysaught is attacking anyone and everyone who feels cloning should be legal. But her main targets are those with the bigger voice, the politicians. She comes across very intimidating in stating her side of the issue, using a lot of easy-to-follow, factual information, which most people are more likely going to be able to understand. For example, according to Lysaught, cloning is a technique used to make an embryo that is an exact copy of another organism, it does this 'A sexually,' which means without using sperm. There is also another form called "reproductive cloning" which is where the embryo is planted into the woman's womb and grown to test the effects of various toxins, or to mine them for their stem cells (Lysaught par 7). Ms. Lysaught does a good job being intimidating while at the same time she works the sympathy side of her issue, using the results of the animal test.

A quote from her article states, "In animals, more than 90 percent of cloning attempts fail to achieve live birth and live-born cloned animals suffer high rates of deformity and disability. Until these technical difficulties are worked out, the risk of harm to a cloned human is unacceptably high". (Lysaught par 11) both of these approaches work well to push her argument. She also anticipates questions and arguments from her opposition; for example, "In 'their's o called views, cloning chances to stop human suffering outweighs moral and ethical concerns about embryonic life.

Embryos, they argue, are not people yet and some even say that while embryos have value of human life, they still lack rights that would protect them from being seen simply as products or as tools for others' benefit". (Lysaught par 13). She then counters by saying, "these articles collapse under closer scrutiny". For example, Therese quoted, "Our obligation to relieve human suffering also entails the obligation not to increase the suffering of the sick and their families by bolstering false hopes with deceptive promises". (Lysaught par 16). Although Ms. Lysaught was well prepared to answer back to any disputes from her opposition, she could have done better by including more views from people outside the United States.

Robert A. Weinberg the Author of "Clones and Clowns" (and one of Therese's opponents with her argument) had a very powerful statement on this subject as well: "In the end, politics will settle the debate in this country about whether human therapeutic cloning is allowed to proceed. If the decision is yes, then we will continue to lead the world in a crucial, cutting-edge area of biomedical research. If it is no, U.S. biologists will need to undertake hegiras to laboratories in Australia, Japan, Israel and certain countries in European outcome that would leave American science greatly diminished". (Weinberg par 46).

Ms. Lysaught could have tied in more information about how cloning would affect the United States outside of the whole scientific side; and include more about how our decision might influence some other nations. Bringing in some ethical and religious stand points to the argument may have helped as well. Like Cregan stated in his recent article in the Internal Medicine Journal", The ethics and potential social consequences inherent in this technology are fraught and encourage the com modification and abstraction of one of the fundamental conditions of human life". (Cregan par 1) All in all the article "Let's Make the World a No-Clone Zone" is a much better article then "Clones and Clowns" and "Ethical and Social Issues of Embryonic Stem Cell Technology" put together. The three articles are all quite fact filled, but Therese Lysaught uses an effective rhetorical technique appealing to emotion and quotes a large number of well known authorities on cloning. Ms. Lysaught also seems to have tied all the flaws of cloning to work with her argument (the animal testing).

Her article was a well thought out and researched and contained much more than just her opinion.