Is Human Cloning Acceptable In Todays Society Essays - Biology

Is Human Cloning Acceptable In Today's Society Essays - Biology Is Human Cloning Acceptable In Today's Society Is Human Cloning Acceptable in Todays Society? Imagine a twelve-year-old girl that has been diagnosed with an illness that will be fatal in the next ten years. This disease targets the heart and slowly deteriorates the myocardium of the heart. The twelve-year-old girl is placed behind fifty people on a list for a heart transplant. For that little girl, there seems to be no faith to which she can depend on for her heart transplant. What options does this girl have besides waiting for a heart transplant or waiting to die? Now, imagine a set of parents who are about to have a baby that was cloned from the father. The parents went for a regular check-up with their doctor and found out that their child was going to be physically retarded due to the cloning of the child. The parents are devastated and outraged that the cloning did not turn out successfully. Unfortunately, the responsibility of raising a physically retarded child has been put into their hands. Would this type of genetic altering be acceptable in todays society? How can cloning a person be ethical if the risks of retardation come into play? These two scenarios draw just a few of the questions that scientists and people all over the world are faced with as human cloning is introduced to the world. In the past few years, many people all over the world have read about the cloned sheep called Dolly. Dolly has been one of the most talked about experiments in the twentieth century. When the concept of cloning emerged, the possibilities that could emerge from it floated in the minds of scientists all around the world. Could we really create an exact copy of any living thing by altering the DNA of the particular organism? To many people, the possibilities are endless but to others, it seems like one of the biggest mistakes that man may have stumbled on throughout our entire human existence. In an article in the The Sunday Times written by Steven Connor and Deborah Cadbury, the issue of human cloning is addressed in a positive way. Scientists have created an embryo of a frog without a head, raising the prospect of engineering headless human clones which could be used to grow organs and tissues for transplant surgery. This type of engineering could bring many answers to questions and problems concerning organ transplanting. With any organ transplant, the patient is required to stay on drugs, which lower the immune system in order to keep the transplanted organ from rejecting its recipient. By using the method that scientists predict will soon be available, the recipient would have no problem accepting the newly transplanted organ. With any type of cloning, the issue of ethical behavior arises. Researchers believe that because without a brain or central nervous system the organ sacs may not meet the technical definition of an embryo. In order to produce the headless frogs, scientists have to pinpoint a certain gene and alter that gene. Fortunately, the frogs could be applied to human embryos because the same genes perform similar functions in both frogs and humans (1A). In Scotland, scientists are trying to create a genetically altered cloned pig that can produce harvestable pig organs that the human body will not reject (Better 19). The cloning of pigs could one day benefit humans but in order to insure success, the headless human clone would be the guaranteed project. This type of cloning could save hundreds of people everyday but it is a question of whether its acceptable or not to the public. In an article from The Atlanta Constitution by Jeff Nesmith, scientists are trying to reach a decision on whether human cloning should be legal and how best to prevent it. The article stresses the importance of how human cloning should not be allowed for the use of parents to clone themselves. At a cloning forum sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, participants grappled about ethical and moral issues raised by the unexpected appearance of Scotlands cloned sheep, Dolly. At the forum, the total consensus was directly pointed at making the procedure illegal for human cloning. The real question