Cloning Should Not Be Legalized Essay Example

amongst religious groups about how human cloning is taking a major step towards playing God. However, several religious groups contradict this statement. Some Jewish and Muslim religious leaders testified before the National Bioethics Advisory Commission that they feel that embryo and cloning research might provide discoveries that will counter infertility and other related problems (Americans for Medical Progress Educational Foundation).

The Raelian Religion that has over 50,000 members in over 84 countries, and cloning plays a significant part in their beliefs. They believe that cloning technology is the first step in the quest for eternal life. (BBC) Rael, the founder of the Raelian said, "Cloning will enable mankind to reach eternal life. The next step, like the Elohim do with their 25,000 years of scientific advance, will be to directly clone an adult person without having to go through the growth process and to transfer memory and personality in this person. Then, we wake up after death in a brand new body just like after a good night sleep! (qtd. in BBC) These religious leaders clearly indicate that they support cloning.

There are also 850 million people that are secular, non-religious, agnostic, and atheist that must be taken into account (Adherents). They do not believe in a God or multiple Gods, or religion just may not play a significant part in their lives. According to Survey2001, sponsored by the National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation, out of 333 extremely non-religious individuals surveyed, 51. 4 percent were for cloning research and more than half opposed passing a law against cloning. (Bainbridge).Based on the survey, this means that over 425 million non-religious people support cloning research.

It is

important to look at the general picture when trying to understand the concept of cloning and who will be influenced by it the most. All of the laws are established to better the society as a whole, rather then looking at a single individual or a small group of individuals. There are hundreds of minor religious groups and when looking at world population that is in billions, religious groups such as Raelian followers are not even listed when looking at the top 22 religions of the world.According to 2002 statistics, 86 percent of the world’s population is religious, and only 14 percent accounts for non-religious groups.

According to Survey2001, out of 531 religious individuals surveyed, only 15. 4 percent supported cloning research and 69. 9 percent were for passing a law against cloning. This would account for majority of the world’s population. The top two religions of the world are Christianity with two billion followers (33 percent) and Islam with one point three billion followers (22 percent).

Christians, especially Roman Catholics strongly oppose to cloning.In Sunni Islam and most other sub-divisions it is forbidden to clone animals, or humans, even though some may support cloning research. Richard McCormick for Christian Century believes that human cloning is not just an issue of personal privacy, but it is a very social matter. It affects the wholeness of life, the individuality of life and the respect for life.

He wrote a paper describing how all creatures came from God with their own certain uniqueness about them. Some organisms were created to produce asexually, but for humans this is not the case. Cloning is a form of playing God since it interferes

with the natural order of creation. God devised a proper way to conceive babies; it should be done through marriage and love. A newborn baby is a gift of God and should be a unique product of mother and father. A child’s genes should be determined by chance and continue being a mystery of life instead of being manufactured in the laboratory.

If God wanted one to have a baby with defect or not have a baby at all, it is a part of God’s plan and one should go along with the way God created life. A general consensus amongst major religions of the world is that human cloning is ethically and morally wrong and should not advance to a stage where a human clone is produced. (BBC) A major issue that both religious and non-religious groups have with cloning is the fact that in order to create a single human clone, hundreds of fertilized embryos need to be created and all but one later discharged. To produce a single live cloned sheep named Dolly, scientists created 277 embryos and 276 were thrown away.

(BBC) It is clear that there are both religious and nonreligious individuals that do not support cloning.Cloning may be the only solution to thousands of infertile couples in North America and around the world. 15 percent of Americans and one in every twelve couples in North America have a problem with infertility due to fallopian tube obstruction, endometriosis, ovulation problems and low sperm counts. According to the 2002 Consumer Reports study of fertility clinics, only 25 percent of patients were able to produce a child as a result of IVF (in vitro

fertilization) and similar treatments. Even with fertility drugs, most people cannot produce viable eggs or sperm. Their only choice is to use eggs or sperm donated by strangers, or not to have a child at all.

Through cloning, any body cell can be used to conceive a child, no sperm or egg is needed. (Eibert) Cloning is noted to be better for treating infertility in the sense that it can eliminate health problems and guarantee a healthy child. Thousands of dollars may be spent on fertility treatments and no results are guaranteed. (McCormick) Cloning provides an opportunity for infertile couples to produce a biologically related child that they might otherwise be unable to have.

With the present technology, cloning is too dangerous and infective in order to produce a healthy child through cloning. It took scientists 277 tries, and 13 pregnancies to create Dolly, the first cloned sheep. This high rate of failure puts both the cell donor and the birth mother at risk. There is also a very high risk of multiple miscarriages in the birth mother, putting physical and physiological harm on everyone involved in the process. (BBC) Since humans are more complicated then animals, "even more deaths and lethal birth defects can be expected during the experimentation" (qtd. in Jones).

Even if it was possible to successfully give birth to a cloned child, there is a high risk of a child having mutated genes and/or medical problems that may not appear until the child is 20 years old. (Dr. Dixon) In severe cases a disfiguration and high abnormalities may occur, and the baby would be spontaneously aborted. This was seen in numerous attempts when trying

to clone various animals.

Most of the time disfigured monsters with severe abnormalities were born. The biggest concern with cloning is that the genetic material used from an adult will continue to age, so the newborn would age much too fast.In February 2003, Dolly sheep died prematurely at the age of 6 with severe lung disease and also suffered from arthritis at a very early age, probably as a result of cloning. (Dr. Dixon) According to National Bioethics Advisory Commission, “At this time, the significant risks to the fetus and physical well being of a child created by somatic cell nuclear transplantation cloning outweigh arguably beneficial uses of the technique” (qtd. in BBC). At this time cloning is too experimental, and very unpredictable. BBC) Further advancements in cloning will eventually perfect the techniques that will benefit humans economically, physically and socially. Right now cloning is at its beginning stages, but ultimately cloning could lead to important, lifesaving discoveries. Using genetic engineering, scientists believe they can remove defective genes before the birth of a child, therefore eliminating many inherited diseases.

This may lead to elimination of diseases such as diabetes, blindness, Parkinson’s disease, glaucoma, Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, strokes, lymphoma, cancer, and AIDS that wipes out approximately three million people each year. Jones) This will make society much healthier so they can lead better lives. Genetic engineering could go even further, creating babies that are smarter and stronger in order to create a stronger and better-informed generations. (Robinson) Using cloning and genetic engineering, replacement organs could become freely available to sick and dying people. If there is a child that is in need of a bone marrow transplant,

parents may choose to have another child hoping to have a match, to save their child.

However, if the child were cloned, they would definitely have a perfect match.Patients would no longer need to wait for the next available donor, which may take months or even years. There will be no danger that organ transplant might not function properly or be rejected. (Robinson) The cloning procedure would save countless number of lives that are lost while waiting for transplants.

Without cloning, organs available could never match the transplants needed. The direct result of genetic engineering may produce negative demographic changes all around the world. There is usually a general agreement on sort of people desired in society. By allowing DNA tampering, society may become homologous, losing its uniqueness and decreasing the genetic diversity. This is an extremely dangerous practice and it leads directly to eugenics, the science of altering human evolution so as to encourage desirable traits and discourage undesirable ones.

If a population of organisms has the same genetic information, then a new disease may wipe out the entire population very rapidly. Eugenics may also lead to genocide in which a particular race of people is exterminated, which would result in an event much worse then World War Two due to availability of cloning technology. Today, cloning would not be able to provide replacement organs that are so vital to patients. Right now it is not possible to grow an organ without creating a clone and extracting the needed organ or part from the clone. (Dr. Dixon).

Even if this were possible, it would never be available to lower-income citizens. The priority would be giving to the wealthy

since the cost of genetic engineering would be potentially enormous. The members of the upper class will be able to take advantage of the new technology available and accelerate the social divisions that already exist in society today. Institute of Philosophy and Public Policy) On the surface cloning may look like the perfect solution to end many of society’s problems and sufferings, but when analyzing the cloning issues further, at the end the negative effects outweigh the benefits.

Humans are not authorized to tamper with God’s genetic lottery and diversity and this is supported by major religions of the world that strongly oppose to human and other types of cloning. Not only that, but human cloning is inherently unsafe. The success rate of cloning is low, and a clone is at a very high risk of having mutated genes and developing severe medical problems. It is difficult to see how any other dangerous applications of genetic engineering technology will affect the society and the world. The potential problem is that instead of saving patients, only bigger gaps between rich and poor will be widened.

With so many unknowns concerning human cloning, the attempt to clone humans is potentially dangerous and ethically irresponsible. All human cloning efforts should be banned for the good of all the people in the world.

Works Cited

1. Adherents. Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents. 2002. 6 December 2004
2. lt;http://www. adherents. com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
3. Americans for Medical Progress Educational Foundation. Ethics. 1997. 13 November 2004
4. http://www.csu. edu. au/learning/ncgr/gpi/odyssey/dollycloning/cloning_ethics. html
5. Bainbridge, William Sims. Religious Opposition to Cloning. 2003. 7 December 2004
6. http://www. jetpress. org/volume13/bainbridge. htm BBC. Against Human Cloning.2002. 13 November 2004
7. http://www. bbc.
   

co. uk/religion/ethics/cloning/clonesrcdignity.html