The Ethics of Human Cloning
Uploaded by spootyhead on Mar 19, 2007
The Ethics of Human Cloning
The news about the successful cloning of an adult sheep, in which the sheep’s DNA was inserted into a fertilized sheep egg to produce a lamb with identical DNA, has generated an outpouring of ethical concerns. These concerns are not about Dolly, the first cloned mammal, nor even about the considerable impact cloning may have on the animal breeding industry. They’re about the possibility of cloning humans. For the most part, however, the ethical concerns being raised are exaggerated and misplaced. This is because people have erroneous views of what cloning is. The danger, therefore, lies not in the power of the technology, but in the managing of its techniques and the problems this may arise.
Cloning is the production of one or more individual plants or animals that are genetically identical to another plant or animal. There exist two very different types pf procedures that have been referred to as cloning: Embryo cloning and adult DNA cloning. Embryo cloning has been successfully carried out for many years on many species of animals. The first ones on being cloned were frogs in the 1970’s (Cloning processes despite controversy). Although they have progressed significantly. This procedure involves the removal of one or more cells from embryo, and encouraging the cell to develop into a separate embryo with the same DNA as the original. Some limited experimentation has been done on human embryos. On human conceptions, in one out of 75, the fertilized ovum splits for some unknown reason and produces monzygotic (identical) twins. Each has a genetic makeup identical to he other. In cloning this same operation is done intentionally in a laboratory (Dr. Patrick Nixon).
Producing a clone of a human being would not be like creating a “carbon copy”. It would be more like producing an identical twin. Moreover, just as identical twins are two separate people, biologically, psychologically, morally and legally, though not genetically, so a clone is, a separate person from his or her contemporaneous twin. To think otherwise is to embrace a belief in genetic determinism the view that, genes determine everything about us, and that environment factors or the random events in human development are utterly insignificant. The overwhelming consensus among geneticists is that, genetic determinism is false.
Furthermore, because of the extra steps involved, cloning will probably always be riskier-than is, less likely to result in a live...