Advantages and disadvantages of human cloning.doc

Advantages and disadvantages of human cloningPositive arguments: (human cloning should be permitted)1. We can reverse our own aging process by using cloning. If a person could clone his body cells and have these cells implanted into the body when he is older, this person could renew his body. Someday this technique could allow humans to live to any age they want.2. Embryonic stem cells can be grown to produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged ones. Skin for burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, spinal cord cells for quaanpleglcs and parapteglcs, hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys could be produced. By combining this technology with human cloning technology it may be possible to produce needed tissue for suffering people that will be free of rejection by their immune systems.3. Cloning could help infertile couples if they want to have children. One single egg cell has to be taken from the womans ovary and put into a dish where it is fertilized with a sperm cell from the man. The fertilized egg cell is than placed into the womans womb.4. Reconstructive and cosmetic surgery could be improved with the help of cloning. Up to now cosmetic surgery can be risky because it uses materials that are foreign to the body. Doctors would have the ability to manufacture bone, fat and connective tissue that matches the patients tissues exactly. Every person could change his appearance risklessly.5. Cloning can be used to cure currently incurable diseases. We may be able to cure cancer if we learn how cells differentiate into specific kind of tissue and how can-cerous cells loose their differentiation. We could learn about this and then we may be able to develop an effective gene therapy to help sick people.6. We can produce a person genetically identical to a dead person, with exactly the same outward appearance. So the dead person will get a new life. For example, we can clone a famous dead person or our loved one.7. Cloning gives the chance for lesbians35 to have children. Technically it is possible to create a baby with the hereditary36 material from two mothers. Their baby will later look exactly like the mother who donated the hereditary material. Negative arguments: (Human cloning should not be permitted. )1. Realizing the dream to live forever brings a lot of new problems. We already have the problem that there are too many old people and not enough young people to pay for their pensions.2. Also old people may be physical healthy but we have no medicine or technique to renew their mind. For some people with mental illness this artificially prolonged life might not be worth living.3. Cloned human tissues or organs can be used to replace the counterparts37 of a human body, but this may be abused by some evil people to sell human body organs. This is illegal and immoral.4. Seen from the couples point of view using cloning in order to have children is a brilliant idea but what about the ethical views? Cloning children will probably lead to the designer baby since the fertilized egg cell (which is to be an embryo soon) could also be enhanced with selected genes for special traits such as musical or athletic talent.5. Choosing one child over another is immoral. By doing this industrialized countries are no better than Third World countries that favor boy babies and often kill girl babies soon after birth. The only difference would be that we kill the egg and not the born baby.6. Cloning can only produce genetically identical humans but it cant ensure that the personal beliefs or goals will be similar to the model because of different living environment and living experiences.7. Cloning people to replace others is somewhat similar to have another baby just to create a perfect donor for the already existing sibling that is sick. Its ethically unjustifiable3s.8. Clones are genetically like brothers and sisters. Therefore genetic diversity is more and more destroyed by cloning and diseases can more easily be spread between identical people.9. By using cloning for this purpose, Lesbian couples have the possibility to create a family like all other couples, too, but this will probably evoke a lot of protest in society among those who dont feel that they should have these rights because they dont accept homosexuality.10. If someday many people have been cloned there will consequently evolve two classes of humans: the gene-enhanced and those who were “created” naturally. Of courses the gene-enhanced will have a lot of advantaged in life since they were given special talents.11. When a scientist takes stem cells from an embryo fo