Term Paper about Cloning

Nicole Pluta November 29, 1998 Scientific experimentation has led us to many great discoveries such as: Chemotherapy, heart surgery, and bone marrow transplants. Recently scientists have discovered a new way to heal humans. This is known as cloning. Although they have yet to clone a human they have cloned sheep. Cloning has brought up a huge controversy among the American people. There are two sides to the story. Either you agree with cloning or you don’t. The only way to help make that decision is to look at the good and bad points of cloning. There are many positive aspects of human and non-human cloning. Human cloning technology could be used to reverse the number one killer in the United States, heart attacks. Scientists believe that they may be able to treat heart attack victims by cloning their healthy heart cells and injecting them into the areas of the heart that have been damaged. There has also been a breakthrough with human stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can be grown to produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged ones. Skin burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, spinal cord cells for quadriplegics and paraplegics, hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys could be produced. By combining this technology with human cloning technology it may be possible to produce needed tissue for suffering people that will be free of rejection by their immune systems. Conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, heart failure, and other problems may be made curable by human cloning. (“Cloning to Save Lives”) Now there are also some ways that we are playing god through cloning. For example, infertile parents could easily have a baby cloned using their DNA and women that are at high risk for Down’s syndrome can avoid that risk by cloning. Even though this sounds great we are basically changing reproduction, as we have always known it to be. There are also many negative aspects of cloning. To create different organs or limbs in order to help a person to live longer or more comfortably seems to go against nature. The way human life should be created is through sexual intercourse. Harmond Varmus, a schoolteacher, said it best; “Human cloning represents a grave attack on the dignity of conception and on the right an unrepeatable, unpredetermined set of genes.” To clone an animal is almost the same thing. We are playing with the way humans and animals have reproduced for years. Is it fair that we clone and then kill an animal just for its organs in order to save a person’s life? Scientists are not even sure that the animal’s organs will be compatible with the human body. According to the Medical Research Modernization Committee (MRMC), studies have shown that biotech products could increase some forms of human cancer, limit the effectiveness of antibiodicts, and cause potentially fatal allergic reactions such as: human growth hormone, L-Tryptoplan, human insulin, and genetically altered foods). (“Is Cloning the Way to Go?”) Although science has come a long way in being able to prolong human life by drugs and surgeries I think it should stop there. With cloning we are going against nature and the outcome of that can not be a good one. I understand that cloning has its good aspects and there are more reasons why cloning should be legal than why it shouldn’t but it is not right. Scientists are willing to clone people at what cost? I know that the book Frankenstein is a little different but look what happens in that book. The creation/monster turned on his creator and began killing people. How do we know that something like that will not happen? This is the kind of thing that happens when people start playing God, “Human cloning would not result in identical souls because only God can create a soul” James Geraghty said this when asked how he felt about cloning. (“Playing God Through Cloning”)