Can We Or Should We Clone Humans

Essay, Research Paper

Can we and should we clone humans.

Cloning humans has recently become a possibility that seems much more feasible in today’s society than it was twenty years ago. It is a method that involves the production of a group of identical cells or organisms that all derive from a single individual (Grolier 220). It is not known when or how cloning humans really became a possibility, but it is known that there are two possible ways that we can clone humans. The first way involves splitting an embryo into several halves and creating many new individuals from that embryo. The second method of cloning a human involves taking cells from an already existing human being and cloning them, in turn creating other individuals that are identical to that particular person. With these two methods almost at our fingertips, we must ask ourselves two very important questions: Can we do this, and should we. There is no doubt that many problems involving the technological and ethical sides of this issue will arise and will be virtually impossible to avoid, but the overall idea of cloning humans is one that we should accept as a possible reality for the future.

Cloning humans is an idea that has always been thought of as something that could be found in science fiction novels, but never as a concept that society could actually experience. “It is much in the news. The public has been bombarded with newspaper articles, magazine stories, books, television shows, and movies as well as cartoons”,writes Robert McKinnell, the author of Cloning: A Biologist Reports (24). Much of this information in these sources leads the public in the wrong direction and makes them wonder how easy it would be for everyone around them to be cloned. Bizarre ideas about cloning lie in many science fiction books and scare the public with their unbelievable possibilities. David Rorvik wrote a highly controversial book entitled In His Image. In it he describes the story of a wealthy man who decides to clone himself. He is successful in doing this and causes quite an uprise in his community. This book was written in the late seventies and even then, societies reaction to the issues of human cloning was generally a negative one. We face a problem today even greater than the one in this book and it involves the duplication of human beings in a society that has always been known for its diversity.

The main issue as to whether or not human cloning is possible through the splitting of embryos began in 1993 when experimentation was done at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington D.C. There Dr. Jerry Hall experimented with the possibility of human cloning and began this moral and ethical debate. There it was concluded that cloning is not something that can be done as of now, but it is quite a possibility for the future. These scientists experimented eagerly in aims of learning how to clone human. Shannon Brownlee of U.S. News & World Report writes, “Hall and other scientists split single humans embryos into identical copies, a technology that opens a Pandora’s box of ethical questions and has sparked a storm of controversy around the world” (24). They attempted to create seventeen human embryos in a laboratory dish and when it had grown enough, separated them into forty-eight individual cells. Two of the separated cells survived for a few days in the lab developed into new human embryos smaller than the head of a pin and consisting of thirty-two cells each (Brownlee 24).

Although we cannot clone a human yet, this experiment occurred almost two years ago and triggered almost an ethical emergency. Evidence from these experiments got strange reactions from the public. Shannon Brownlee claims, “The Vatican condemned the technology of this experiment as being perverse; one German magazine called the research `unscrupulous’” (24). This experiment opened the possibilities of cloning to society and, even though it was unsuccessful, led people to ask themselves what they would do if cloning were to happen. Common answers to the puzzling questions about humans and cloning are still trying to be answered today, and scientists and the public are eager to learn all they can about cloning. Many sources state that cloning is just simply an extension of in vitro fertilization, but the root of cloning goes further than that.

Cloning embryos is different from the genetic process of in vitro fertilization, but still holds many similarities with it. For example, the process of in vitro fertilization is pretty straightforward. It involves taking an egg from the woman and taking sperm from the man. The embryo is thus formed and implanted into the woman’s uterus. The embryo develops normally and is born with unpredictable characteristics of both the man and the woman. The offspring ends up as unique individual and excluding the special case of twins, has no other human being exactly like it. It uses one embryo that is from the beginning a distinct individual and creates only one human that is basically completely original. Cloning also goes through this same process, but it is unlike in vitro fertilization in that it takes the same type embryo and destroys its originality through duplication. Research on in vitro fertilization helps to improve its technique and also aids in scientists their search for better ways clone humans.

Since scientists have already done a great