Introduction
The issue of therapeutic and reproductive cloning has much been discussed during the last decade all over the world. Moreover, everyone involved in the debates has had a different but a clear-cut opinion on the issue meaning that cloning is either extremely good or it is nothing else but evil. Specifically, after Dolly, the sheep, was cloned, people were threatened by the possible future infinite reproduction of dictators, supermodels and geniuses. Consequently, UNESCO and the Council of Europe have independently declared that human reproductive cloning is unethical because it violates “human dignity”. The advisory commission on human cloning established by the European Commission has supported this idea as well. Furthermore, almost every Christian philosopher and many secular philosophers have also warned of dire consequences if cloning experiment is going to continue in the future. They claim that cloning, both reproductive and therapeutic, must be abolished because it is unethical in the sense that a potential human life is being destroyed. Philosophers also contend that those who support this medical research are nothing else but potential killers. However, a lot of scientists and doctors strongly support stem cell research and cloning for medical purposes because it has a potential to save lives of millions sick people all over the world.
Obviously, this argument is much stronger than religious and philosophical assertions that cloning for whatever reason is unethical. Therefore, therapeutic cloning should be legalized because it is proved that it could help to cure many deadly and debilitating diseases. Also, the use of stem cells is not unethical because it is not in fact killing another human since cloning uses unfertilized cells.
Arguments
A. Therapeutic cloning could assist in finding cure for genetic diseases
Cloning for medical purposes should be legalized because “the use of genetic engineering in humans promises some extraordinary benefits, one of which is cure and prevention of many types of diseases that stem from faulty genes.” As statistics indicate, fourteen percent of newborns are born with a physical or mental problem. In addition, these genetic deficiencies may cause many other problems later in life. Moreover, scientists and doctors name more and more health disorders caused by faulty genes everyday. Examples of such diseases can be Down’s Syndrome, Cystic Fibrosis, Sickle Cell Anemia, Juvenile Diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and many others. Embryonic stem cell research has shown that there is a huge possibility to cure such diseases because these cells are easy to duplicate. Specifically, each cell can become anything – skin, bone, blood and any other cell of the 210 types of cells that make up the human body. Than, a faulty cell can be replaced with the good one meaning that a person condemned to death can easily be saved in this way. For example, a research project at Washington University proves that embryonic stem cells can easily regenerate after they are being inserted in the animal body. Specifically, the spinal cords of rats regenerated after stem cells were incorporated into their bodies to the extent that the animals were able to walk by themselves. Furthermore, the French example gives direct evidence that the cell exchange works out in practice not only in animal bodies but in human bodies as well. For instance, according to French researchers, a damaged heart can be repaired with a dose of stem cells. Their study provides the first direct evidence that stem cells injected into an injured heart do develop to take on some of the workload. Specifically, muscle stem cells, called myoblasts, were taken from the thigh muscle of a man who had suffered a heart attack. Then they were cultured and injected into his heart. The function of his heart was stronger after this treatment. When this person died after 18 months, the researchers were able to get factual evidence that the injected myoblasts had metamorphosed in his body. So, these examples prove that stem cells have the potential to change into any cell in the body, such as a heart tissue cell or a spinal cord cell. This means that the stem cell research would help to heal a lot of people who suffer from the deadly and debilitating diseases.
Next, therapeutic cloning should be legal because it would make the process of creating replacement organs much easier. Then, replacement organs could become freely available to sick and dying people at any moment they need them. Moreover, that would save countless numbers of lives and increase the quality of lives of countless others because these people would no longer need to wait years and years in order to get a perfectly matched replacement organ, or in many cases to die before they get the transplant. It should be mentioned that medical cloning with the purpose to create a completely new replacement organ has numerous advantages when compared to regular organ transplant by a second person. In this case there would be presumably no danger of rejection of the transplant because the organ’s DNA would match the patient’s DNA exactly. Furthermore, for transplants involving kidney, or any other organ that is duplicated in the body, another individual would not have to experience pain, inconvenience and potentially shortened life span in order to donate the organ. On the hand, the patient would not have to wait until an unrelated donor dies in order to obtain a transplant. Also, the patient would not have to make – do with a replacement organ that is old and may have reduced functionality because a brand – new organ would be grown specifically for him. Obviously, the procedure would save lives which would otherwise be lost waiting for a transplant that did not come in time, or did not perfectly fit to the patient.
So, it clear that cloning should be no longer treated as a criminal activity if it is done exceptionally for medical purposes because individual stem cells can be implanted in human bodies to repair the damage caused by degenerative illnesses. Also, stem cells have the potential to grow into complete organs that are desperately necessary for people who need replacement organs in order to survive.
B. Therapeutic cloning is ethically acceptable
Therapeutic cloning is not an unethical practice as it is held by a big number of people; therefore, its legalization can be easily justified. First, the religious assertion that a stem cell is a living person and that the research equals murder cannot in any way restrict the legalization of therapeutic cloning because it is not true. It is known that scientists use unfertilized eggs in the process of cloning, thus the cloned egg could never be a person. Consequently, if there is no person, there is no murder as well. Next, many scientists prefer to use healthy cells taken from abnormal human embryos that are condemned to die anyway. Specifically, these spare embryos are taken from couples undergoing medical treatment at fertility clinics. For instance, John Gurdon, head of the team at the Wellcome Cancer Research Institute in Cambridge, who made experiments with the cloned frog embryos, says that he cannot see why anyone would object to someone taking cells and working with them if an embryo is certain to die. Moreover, he thinks that if an embryo is destined to die within days, it’s not a potential human. Clearly, no objection on the grounds of unethical practice can be made in this case as well because there is nothing immoral to work with the cells that are going to die soon anyway. Furthermore, there is one more alternative proposition that makes stem cell research ethically justifiable. Obviously, there is nothing evil but the benefits of being able to develop an individual’s own cells in order to create a new source of cells for their own future treatment. Finally, the potential benefits of stem cell research are much more significant than these moral, ethical and religious concerns. Also, all these benefits, especially if therapeutic cloning is allowed to practice legally, would represent the best future of developing treatments and cures for a numerous amount of degenerative disorders.
Conclusion
As it is obvious from the facts and examples that are mentioned above in this paper, cloning for medical purposes should be definitely legalized because it provides the society with more benefits than harms. Moreover, ethical objections towards stem cell research are not substantial in order to deny this medical advancement that, according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, would be beneficial for more than 100 million people suffering from mental and physical disorders that are caused by faulty genes. Therefore, if we want to save lives or improve the quality of lives of deadly ill people, we have to legalize this outstanding medical practice. Only then we will be able to regulate this process and avoid abusive practices in this particular field. Also, the interest of the most vulnerable persons in our society would be protected if we promote these advanced medical technologies rather than prevent them on vague, ambiguous and in practice harm resulting so – called ethical grounds.
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