Human cloning is possibly one of the most heated and relevant ethical debates of our time. Cloning is the process of taking genetic material from one organism, and creating an identical copy of it by growing it artificially. This has been researched, studied, and successfully done with the use of animals, many people believe the next step is humans. The entire world would be changed if we began to clone humans, in some ways for the better, but in others it would be much worse. When talking about human lives, lines must be drawn, but where? In order to form a valid and educated opinion on human cloning it is very important to understand the argument from both sides.
The Advantages of Human Cloning
1. Biological Children To Infertile Couples
Couples who are not able to naturally conceive a child would be able to clone themselves in order to have a biological child. This would also open the possibility for gay or lesbian couples to have a child that contains both parents DNA and genes.
2. Medical Advancement Boom
Once the process of cloning humans is perfected and becomes a common practice, many other worlds of medical research would be expanded. This would result in improved medicines and even possibly cures for terminal and deadly diseases.
3. Compensating A Loss
Parents who have lost a child could clone them and have their child back. This would also go for someone who lost a spouse or other family member. This breaches into the more controversial side of human cloning, but is an advantage none the less.
4. Organ Harvesting
Anyone who is in need of an organ transplant is placed on an excruciatingly long donor list. Many of these people pass on from their illness before ever receiving a transplant. With human cloning, organs could be cloned from the person’s tissue and used as a transplant. This would effectively eliminate the organ transplant waiting list.
5. The Elimination of Birth Defects
Any severe birth defect that is detected in the womb could be reversed using human cloning. They would simply take the tissue of the child and create a clone. After they have done this they could manipulate the embryos genes to remove the birth defect and give them a better possibility of living a long and fulfilling life.
6. Prolonged Life
If a person is aging, they could have their young cell cloned in order to preserve their youth. This would be done with the technology of human cloning, and could prolong the average life span of a human being dramatically.
7. Bring Back Great Minds
Legendary, genius, and influential people could be brought back using human cloning. This means that we could possibly create a dozen Einsteins or Abraham Lincolns to come and help solve world problems.
The Disadvantages of Human Cloning
1. Currently Low Success Rates
With the current information that we have on the process of cloning, there seems to be very limited success. Out of all of the animal testing on cloning that has been conducting, only about 3 percent have been successful. This is a very scary statistic, especially when you’re talking about using human lives.
2. Development of New Illnesses
When you are creating entirely new forms of genes, you run the risk of also developing new illnesses and diseases. The extent and effects of these could be devastating.
3. Devalues Human Lives
The belief that a person only has one life to live has been ingrained into people since the beginning of humanity. Being able to simply clone some one who has passed devalues the life that they have.
4. Divisions In Society
People who are cloned would likely be viewed as lesser citizens than those who where conceived naturally. This would bring an entirely new breed of racism and prejudice to the world that could cause devastating social divides. Clones would feel as though they are not as much of a human as other people.
5. Moral and Ethical Problems
Religion and cultural problems have played the largest part in the argument against human cloning. Many people believe that cloning a human being is “playing God” and should not be done under any circumstance.
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Important Facts About Human Cloning
