Sunghwan Park
When I was young, I was a big fan of science fiction films because they showed me totally different, new, and novel worlds involving things like robots, aliens and their crafts, and cloned persons. There was a movie, Blade Runner, about the human clone. In this movie, scientists successfully create a human clone called a “replicant” through an improvement of genetic technology. The replicants are made for certain objections: some are for fighting battles, some are for just sexual pleasure, and so forth. But these replicants have a very short lifespan, just four-years, because scientists don’t want them to develop emotions and a desire for independence. Meanwhile, four replicants realize this and try to expand their lives, and then, the scientists who created the replicants employ “Blade Runner” to eliminate them. What was interesting was that they used the expression of “retirement” instead of “execution” when Blade Runner killed the human clones.
Of course, this is science fiction, but it is obvious that we are getting closer to this situation with advancements in genetic technology. Already some scientists have succeeded in reproducing animals. The most famous one is Dolly, the sheep which was the first mammal to be cloned in 1996. Current geneticists have been focused on the possibility of human cloning. The movie is closer to as reality every day.
Most countries and religions, however, oppose human cloning for some ethical reasons. Most countries, therefore, impose restrictions on human cloning with the law. So, what is the human cloning and what are the problems of that? Cloning refers to reproducing an individual to have the exact same genetic components as another individual, animal, or plant. In other words, human cloning is to reproduce identical twins artificially in the lab.
Those who support human cloning insist that human clones will have a very positive influence on all humankind. According to them, human cloning will allow mankind to cure incurable disease and to extend their lifespan which is one of the biggest desires. Also, human cloning can give hope to married couples who cannot have children.
Nevertheless, most people stand against it, and I am also one of those. Of course, human cloning experiments may help people escape from the suffering of watching a loved one die. This would be what we all want. In this sense, human cloning may be able to be accepted by Utilitarianism which pursues happiness for all.
I think, however, human cloning experiments are very inhuman and dangerous acts.
When people create something, they have some purpose for it. This means that when scientists produce a human clone, they have some chief aims for the human clone. Human clones can be used for wars or pleasure or medicine. That is human clone would be degraded and be just a means to an end. In this process, human clones also could be produced in quantity according to use, and in the end, it would compromise the dignity of human life. Human cloning would certainly cause some serious unethical conduct. In addition, Christian ethics understand the human being as a creature of God with freedom. Therefore, an act to manipulate a human’s freedom (human clone) is wrong not only morally, but also religiously.
Moreover, human cloning will bring about social and religious confusion. Socially, human beings have a blood relation with their biological parents. Blood ties and families are the fundamental elements that constitute society. And then, religiously, people have a relationship with God as God’s creature. Human clones, however, will have nothing to do with biological parents or God since their parents (?) or creator would be the scientists. I, thus, strongly insist that human cloning experiments must be stopped.
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Basically I think human cloning is scientifically created slavery. We as humans would be creating other humans for the purposes of serving us medically and in other ways, regardless of the consent of the created. This to me is a big step in the wrong direction, away from respect for life as such and towards an affirmation of our own needs and wants regardless of the cost to others.
ReplyDeletetest
ReplyDeleteI think you raise a good point by saying that cloning very easily leads to the instrumental use of the creature, in this case person, and treating them simply as a means.
ReplyDeleteSunghwan, thank you for your thoughtful posting. While I agree with you on some points, I respectfully disagree on your complete rejection of human cloning.
ReplyDeleteThere are three types of human cloning with three different goals. (This information comes from the website Religious Tolerance which you might want to visit: http://www.religioustolerance.org/cloning.htm):
Embryo cloning is a medical technique which produces identical twins or triplets. This has been done for many years on various species of animals; only very limited experimentation has been done on humans.
Adult DNA cloning is intended to produce a duplicate of an existing animal. As has been shown in animal experiments, this technique can produce severe genetic defects. As you have written, you and many medical ethicsts consider this type of cloning to be a profoundly immoral procedure when done on humans.
Therapeutic cloning (biomedical cloning): This is a procedure whose initial stages are identical to adult DNA cloning. However, the stem cells are removed from the pre-embryo with the intent of producing tissue or a whole organ for transplant back into the person who supplied the DNA. The pre-embryo dies in the process. The goal of therapeutic cloning is to produce a healthy copy of a sick person's tissue or organ for transplant. This technique would be vastly superior to relying on organ transplants from other people. The supply would be unlimited, so there would be no waiting lists. The tissue or organ would have the sick person's original DNA; the patient would not have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their life, as is now required after transplants. There would not be any danger of organ rejection.
Of course, there are ethical issues for therapeutic cloning. However, having had friends who have died ugly deaths from incurable organ diseases, I strongly support therapeutic cloning. Imagine the potential…think of how many die each year while waiting for an organ transplant…some who are infants whose lives are cruelly cut short.
If you have ever known someone who has had an organ transplant, the results are definitely not perfect. Transplant survivors do not have an easy life, constantly having to guard against (and fear) organ rejection and infection.
And now we enter the region where religion and science collide. My faith supports ethical, carefully considered science. For me, science also supports my belief that God can work through medical discoveries and scientific breakthroughs.
If God gave you a brain to do it, why not do it?
ReplyDeleteCloning is the next big thing in science. Its called improving the breed and it enables people to understand diseases and grow new organs. Cloning is a bold new way to understand how life exist. Cloning, it may not be considered religiously or morally right but it’s a scientific good. it’s a way to create cheaper medicine for the poor and its an investment in life.
Sung-hwan, thank you for your posting. When I read your posting, I could remember the movie which you explained in the posting.
ReplyDeleteI know that human cloning allows human to have many abilities and chances to overcome the limits which approve that human have a mortal live.
However, I am against human cloning. Because I think that human cloning is not religious and ethical. I think that although God gave us the abilities to develop the science and our lives, God does not want that human use unmorally our abilities that God gave us. God loves the justice and right. Using human clone for human’s lives is not justice and moral although human clone is made by the science not following the process of the nature birth. I agree with you. Thanks.