Human Cloning (by WILLIAM SAUNDERS)
Moubarak 1
Racha Moubarak
Prof. Dania Adra
English 203
18 October 2015
Human Cloning
Cloning has always been considered
science fiction, until the famous creation of Dolly, a cloned sheep that was
given birth in 1997, by Ian Wilmut using the “somatic cell nuclear transfer” technique.
This unique technology has shocked the world, including many governments that
had immediately drafted bills to completely ban human cloning. Thus, recently,
some scientists had announced the success of the first human embryos, using the
same operation and procedure as the one used previously in the production of
Dolly the sheep. For instance, issues surrounding human cloning can never be overanalyzed,
as this process is often seen by philosophers as both a hindrance and a help
for society. According to the article linked below, the time has come to outlaw
human cloning, rejecting the idea of “unnatural” reproduction and “disrespectful”
humanity treatment. But from a different perspective, numerous of remarkable
benefits can come from cloning technology if we’ll be able to see human cloning
as a gene therapy and a well-developed treatment for many medical and social
diseases.
In a first extent, human
cloning is a perfect treatment for infertility that is usually caused by
genetic defects and in spite all the assisted-reproduction technologies that
had been developed, cloning has been proved to be the less painful and
expensive treatment to such cases. So, cloning may prevent divorce and suicide
among infertile people, what opposes the idea rose in the article that “a child
has the right to be "the fruit" of the conjugal love of his parents,
who are united in marriage”. (SAUNDERS 3) So what if one of the parents was infertile?
What’s then the utility of the “conjugal love” in such cases? In addition, this
article primary concern is to bring to light how cloning is playing God: “we
believe that almighty God creates and infuses an immortal soul, which truly
gives each of us that identity of one made in His image and likeness.”(SAUNDERS
2) But this argument assumes that we know God’s intentions, while evidently, ethics
of human cloning are totally absent in the bible. Who is to say that it is not
God’s will that we clone ourselves? Furthermore, whenever a doctor performs a
life-saving surgery, he is controlling the patient’s life and thus changing his
destiny and, according to the same extremism thinking shown in the argument
below, he is playing the role of God. So why should we just ban human cloning
in our society? Moreover, the article said that “Any production of human beings
for the sake of experimentation, research, or the harvesting of organs is
morally wrong”( SAUNDERS 6); however, there are no harmful researches, but
quite the contrary; any research aims to improve the human race, and to reduce
the defects, aches, and hereditary diseases. Then it’s totally unacceptable to
devalue the importance of the researches and experiments, especially those
about human reproduction. In this perspective, I would like to ask these “ethical”
persons what the “fertilization” (SAUNDERS 5) can make if a nuclear bomb hits
part of the world and destroy any ability of reproduction for decades like in
Hiroshima. Wouldn’t be helpful to apply human cloning to save the human race
and protect some minorities from vanishing? Also, cloning does not always treat
children as object as shown in the article “Such actions reduce a human being
to simply disposable biological material” (SAUNDERS 6), because the child born
from cloning will be highly valued by his parents who made a hard decision to
bring him to life, in addition to the high costs they had to pay and the effort
they made. Also, many children are not intended at all, but they are the result
of a unplanned pregnancy, while there would be no fear of “unplanned cloning”,
so the ‘cloned’ child will always be loved by his parents. Finally,
the article assumes that “The danger with cloning is that we easily lose sight
of the dignity of the person”, but in fact it is hard to understand why the act
of sexual intercourse that leads to sexual procreation is more “dignified” than
a modern science technology that aims to give birth for a child based on a
reasoned adult decision. In addition, millions of children that were born through
IVF therapy do not suffer from psychological problems or lack of dignity, but
in the contrary, they benefit from an excellent health.
In a second extent, even if human cloning should be legalized,
there always exists a hidden element in any reproduction and human creation,
which is the human soul, the infinite power and possession of God. This article
presents a great argument about this point:
Another faith dilemma concerns the
soul. Even if we can clone a human being, we cannot "clone" the soul.
While two people may be genetically identical, their souls make them unique,
even totally different in personality. We have to ask also, "If reproduction
is taken out of the ordinary means as God has designed, does He have to infuse
a soul?" Maybe cloning would only produce humanoids or androids — soulless
replicas of human beings that could be used as slaves. The answer to these
questions themselves could be like opening Pandora's box.
In addition, the author of this article has some reasons
that “From a purely monetary point, the whole market of organ harvesting
becomes a reality” (SAUNDERS 9) what shows that the children will be
manufactured by an expensive technological process that is subject to quality
control. And this also limits human cloning to a small category of people who
can afford paying the high costs of the cloning operation. Hence, the problem
of cloning is not in the operation itself because it has many advantages to humanity,
but in the way it’s applied in our society and in the way it’s been exploited
by the company who holds the technique:” When Dolly made the headlines. the
Wall Street Journal printed an article entitled, "Who Will Cash in on
Breakthrough in Cloning?" The answer was "the company who holds the
technique” (SAUNDERS 9). So the author was right when he was talking about the “commodification”
of people, but I think his interpretation went wrong: the cloning process is a
well-developed and useful technology but its exploitation by the scientists and
the company owners if very harmful to humanity. Last but not least, the article’s
conclusion is one of the most reasoning points of the text because it
represents a subject of dilemma that every person will face (despite all the
faith criteria’s): the fear of every new technology: “The technology is there,
but do we dare use it and risk paradise?” (SAUNDERS 10)
Catholic
Education Resource Center. 2003. Web. October 18, 2015.
moodle
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