Is Human Cloning Ethical?

3 Pages 715 Words

A clone is defined as a cell; group of cells, or organisms that are descended from a single original cell. Scientist Ian Wilmut can be credited with cloning the first mammal, Dolly the sheep, in February of 1997. From that point on ethical issues on cloning began to erupt. Many people are against cloning; then again many people are for human cloning. I am personally not against human cloning and feel that human cloning should be explored.
There are many misconceptions of human cloning today. One misconception according to Herbert, Sheler, and Watson is that, “A human clone would not be an exact copy of the person who provided its DNA, but rather would be sort of delayed identical twin, as much as a separate individual as any twin.” This is an argument against human cloning and many argue this quote in their favor say that parents who wish to clone a deceased child will end up with a second child who appears to look like the first child yet differ in personality. Parents could possibly be traumatized and become depressed when they come to realize that their second is not an exact replica of the first born. Yet Ronald Bailey goes against this idea in his article “Research into Human Cloning Should Not be Banned”. He states, “What would a clone be? Well, he or she would be a complete human being who happens to share the same genes with another person. Today, we call such people identical twins. To my knowledge no one has argued that twins are immoral. Of course, cloned twins would not be the same age. But it is hard to see why this age difference might present an ethical problem--or give clones a different moral status.” Lee Silver from the article “Human Cloning is Ethical” also fights the idea by stating, “But there is no reason to believe that her parents will be any more unreasonable than many other parents who expect their children to accomplish in their lives what they were unable to accomplish in ...