Public Discourse: Human Cloning Draft 2

“Life is a creation, not a commodity” – President George W. Bush 2007

 

 

            Most people would agree that having multiple copies of themselves walking around town is not their ideal picture of society. Civilization thrives off diversity and multiple cultures coming together and living as one. Every person is unique in his or her own way and by cloning people, not only are you taking away individuality but you are repealing identity. It is important that society remains diverse and different so people will strive to compromise and encourage cultural boundaries. There are many issues that arise when human cloning is addressed and all issues end up concluding that this scientific advancement is extremely unethical and should be stopped immediately. Human cloning poses so many problems that our generation is not ready for and I would be surprised to hear if any generation will ever be ready for “man creating man.” Following President George W. Bush’s speech about banning human cloning, he started his speech with “All of us here today believe in the promise of modern medicine. We’re hopeful about where science may take us and we are also here because we believe in the principles of ethical medicine. As we seek to improve human life, we must always preserve human dignity; therefore, we must prevent human cloning by stopping it before it starts” (1). President Bush stresses the need to stop the human cloning process before scientists start making huge advancements in medical technology. The morality of human cloning needs to be reevaluated, reconsidered, and more importantly banned.

            First I will supply some background information about cloning. Human cloning is the laboratory production of individuals who are genetically identical to another human being. Cloning is achieved by putting the genetic material from a donor into a woman’s egg, which has had its nucleus removed. As a result the new, cloned embryo is an identical copy of only the donor. The debate today mostly concerns reproductive cloning and research cloning. Reproductive cloning is creating a cloned embryo and putting it in a woman with the goal of creating a child. Research cloning involves the creation of cloned human embryos, which are then destroyed to derive stem cells. Cloning procedures started in animals in 1997 with Dolly the sheep, who was the first successfully cloned mammal. Since then, cloning technology has enabled scientists to generate mouse, cattle, goat, pig, deer, rabbit, cat, mule, and horse clones. Although these technological advances sound promising, the odds of perfect clones are limited. For every one hundred experiments only one, two, or if lucky, perhaps three appear to produce a viable offspring in surrogate mothers (2). If only two or three out of one hundred experiments produce a perfect clone of an animal, just imagine what the public would say about two or three perfect humans cloned out of one hundred experiments. This statistic just has unethical written all over it and would more than likely result in public outrage that would probably jeopardize the advancement of stem cell research. “We live in a time of tremendous medical progress. A little more than a year ago, scientists first cracked the human genetic code, one of the most important advances in scientific history. Already scientists are developing diagnostic tools so each of us can know our risk of disease and act to prevent them” (1).  The point is, science is always advancing and knowledge is always changing. Cloning is a huge medical advance that needs to be stopped now because it could very well be the next scientific breakthrough that takes science and ethics too far. Research cloning pushes the medical boundary by contradicting the most fundamental principle of medical ethics “no human life should be exploited or extinguished for the benefit of another. Research cloning basically means we would grow humans for their organs then dispose of them. How does this even begin to seem ethical? By allowing research cloning, society would be taking a step towards a future of humans being grown for spare body parts and children engineered to custom specifications. This idea conflicts not only with medical ethics but religious beliefs and morals.

            To produce a baby that is yours and to hold it in your arms, knowing you made this beautiful life out of passion and love; nothing can compare to the feeling of having your own child. How would you feel if your baby was manufactured to look just like you, or was a leftover from a pervious experiment? It would take away from the miracle of childbirth and the beauty of creation. God is viewed as having a helping hand when creating a baby. God supposedly has a plan for every human and by making man “manmade,” it takes away from the religious aspect of life that comforts so many people. Society wouldn’t be natural and unique; people would just become another commodity being sold along with the appearance and genes of your choice. The beauty of creation is partially the mystery of the new individual concerning his or her appearance, genes, personality etc. A person should not be chosen like clothing from a catalog, a person should be created by people who are in love with the assistance of God who is responsible for the natural beauty the world exhibits.

            Although there are two kinds of human cloning (reproductive and research/therapeutic), both should be banned. The problems with reproductive cloning stem from the fact that there is no guarantee that the first cloned humans will be normal and the fetus will suffer from some disorder not detectable by ultrasound. Dolly, the sheep that was successively cloned, was only expected to live for five years, which is shorter than the normal life span of eleven years. So it’s possible to say that this type of cloning will have the same affect on humans. Also concerning Dolly, the sheep was conceived using an ewe’s egg and a cell from another ewe’s body, which means no semen from a ram was used; therefore, if this technique were perfected in humans, there would be no need for men. Not to mention that diversity will deplete rapidly and emotions would be affected because there would be no solid or natural relationships (3). Moving on to research/therapeutic cloning, problems still exist that limit the promise of this procedure. First of all stem cells are needed to start this process and it takes one hundred eggs (if you’re lucky) to produce a useable stem cell line. This means that if a cure for diabetes is found, it would take 1.5 billion eggs to cure fifteen million Americans who have diabetes. The eggs would have to be harvested from women, which is “painful, costly and unreliable” (4). By needing women’s eggs for research and stem cells for therapeutic cloning, women are now marketed in a way that is definitely unethical. The exploitation of women’s bodies would just create more issues than society knows what to do with and a mass market for women’s eggs would be created. It only seems logical for nature to take its course and humans should reproduce on their own time for the right reasons. Harvesting eggs, depleting diversity, creating disorders, killing off the male gender etc. just doesn’t seem like enough to agree to proceed with human cloning. There needs to be a better reason than “we should clone humans because we can.” Cloning is unethical and it completely defies Christianity, medical ethics, and society’s native morals. Human cloning should be banned completely before any significant advances surface.

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited

 

1)   Rosaryfilms, comp. "George W. Bush Calls On The Senate To Back

 

Human Cloning Ban." YouTube. 30 June 2007. 4 Nov. 2008

 

.

2)   "Human Cloning." AMA Helping Doctors Help Patients. 17 May 2008. 4 Nov. 2008 .

3)   Robinson, Bruce A. "Reproductive Cloning a.k.a. cell nuclear

replacement." Religious Tolerance. 12 Feb. 2004. 4 Nov. 2008 .

 

4)   Robinson, B.A. "Therapeutic Cloning: How it is done; possible benefits - What are the problems of therapeutic cloning." Religious Tolerance. 29 Oct. 2005. 4 Nov. 2008 .

 

"Life is a creation, not a commodity" Human Cloning

“Life is a creation, not a commodity” – President George W. Bush 2007

 

 

            Most people would agree that having multiple copies of themselves walking around town is not their ideal picture of society. Civilization thrives off diversity and multiple cultures coming together and living as one. Every person is unique in his or her own way and by cloning people, not only are you taking away individuality but you are repealing identity. It is important that society remains diverse and different so people will strive to compromise and encourage cultural boundaries. There are many issues that arise when human cloning is addressed and all issues end up concluding that this scientific advancement is extremely unethical and should be stopped immediately. Human cloning poses so many problems that our generation is not ready for and I would be surprised to hear if any generation will ever be ready for “man creating man.” Following President George W. Bush’s speech about banning human cloning, he started his speech with “All of us here today believe in the promise of modern medicine. We’re hopeful about where science may take us and we are also here because we believe in the principles of ethical medicine. As we seek to improve human life, we must always preserve human dignity; therefore, we must prevent human cloning by stopping it before it starts” (1). President Bush stresses the need to stop the human cloning process before scientists start making huge advancements in medical technology. The morality of human cloning needs to be reevaluated, reconsidered, and more importantly banned.

            First I will supply some background information about cloning. Human cloning is the laboratory production of individuals who are genetically identical to another human being. Cloning is achieved by putting the genetic material from a donor into a woman’s egg, which has had its nucleus removed. As a result the new, cloned embryo is an identical copy of only the donor. The debate today mostly concerns reproductive cloning and research cloning. Reproductive cloning is creating a cloned embryo and putting it in a woman with the goal of creating a child. Research cloning involves the creation of cloned human embryos, which are then destroyed to derive stem cells. Cloning procedures started in animals in 1997 with Dolly the sheep, who was the first successfully cloned mammal. Since then, cloning technology has enabled scientists to generate mouse, cattle, goat, pig, deer, rabbit, cat, mule, and horse clones. Although these technological advances sound promising, the odds of perfect clones are limited. For every one hundred experiments only one, two, or if lucky, perhaps three appear to produce a viable offspring in surrogate mothers (2). If only two or three out of one hundred experiments produce a perfect clone of an animal, just imagine what the public would say about two or three perfect humans cloned out of one hundred experiments. This statistic just has unethical written all over it and would more than likely result in public outrage that would probably jeopardize the advancement of stem cell research. “We live in a time of tremendous medical progress. A little more than a year ago, scientists first cracked the human genetic code, one of the most important advances in scientific history. Already scientists are developing diagnostic tools so each of us can know our risk of disease and act to prevent them” (1).  The point is, science is always advancing and knowledge is always changing. Cloning is a huge medical advance that needs to be stopped now because it could very well be the next scientific breakthrough that takes science and ethics too far. Research cloning pushes the medical boundary by contradicting the most fundamental principle of medical ethics “no human life should be exploited or extinguished for the benefit of another. Research cloning basically means we would grow humans for their organs then dispose of them. How does this even begin to seem ethical? By allowing research cloning, society would be taking a step towards a future of humans being grown for spare body parts and children engineered to custom specifications. This idea conflicts not only with medical ethics but religious beliefs and morals.

            To produce a baby that is yours and to hold it in your arms, knowing you made this beautiful life out of passion and love; nothing can compare to the feeling of having your own child. How would you feel if your baby was manufactured to look just like you, or was a leftover from a pervious experiment? It would take away from the miracle of childbirth and the beauty of creation. God is viewed as having a helping hand when creating a baby. God supposedly has a plan for every human and by making man “manmade,” it takes away from the religious aspect of life that comforts so many people. Society wouldn’t be natural and unique; people would just become another commodity being sold along with the appearance and genes of your choice. The beauty of creation is partially the mystery of the new individual concerning his or her appearance, genes, personality etc. A person should not be chosen like clothing from a catalog, a person should be created by people who are in love with the assistance of God who is responsible for the natural beauty the world exhibits.

            Although there are two kinds of human cloning (reproductive and research/therapeutic), both should be banned. The problems with reproductive cloning stem from the fact that there is no guarantee that the first cloned humans will be normal and the fetus will suffer from some disorder not detectable by ultrasound. Dolly, the sheep that was successively cloned, was only expected to live for five years, which is shorter than the normal life span of eleven years. So it’s possible to say that this type of cloning will have the same affect on humans. Also concerning Dolly, the sheep was conceived using an ewe’s egg and a cell from another ewe’s body, which means no semen from a ram was used; therefore, if this technique were perfected in humans, there would be no need for men. Not to mention that diversity will deplete rapidly and emotions would be affected because there would be no solid or natural relationships (3). Moving on to research/therapeutic cloning, problems still exist that limit the promise of this procedure. First of all stem cells are needed to start this process and it takes one hundred eggs (if you’re lucky) to produce a useable stem cell line. This means that if a cure for diabetes is found, it would take 1.5 billion eggs to cure fifteen million Americans who have diabetes. The eggs would have to be harvested from women, which is “painful, costly and unreliable” (4). By needing women’s eggs for research and stem cells for therapeutic cloning, women are now marketed in a way that is definitely unethical. The exploitation of women’s bodies would just create more issues than society knows what to do with and a mass market for women’s eggs would be created. It only seems logical for nature to take its course and humans should reproduce on their own time for the right reasons. Harvesting eggs, depleting diversity, creating disorders, killing off the male gender etc. just doesn’t seem like enough to agree to proceed with human cloning. There needs to be a better reason than “we should clone humans because we can.” Cloning is unethical and it completely defies Christianity, medical ethics, and society’s native morals. Human cloning should be banned completely before any significant advances surface.

            

Election 08

McCain Issues

 

Abortion –

Believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench. Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

 

Budget/Economy –

Workplace flexibility and choice: today’s changing economy is making it harder for parents to balance the demands of family life and their jobs. He believes that strong families require that parents be involved in the lives of their children. Flexible work arrangements can help families strike the right balance. Supports the Family Medical Leave Act in 1993

Immediate Relief for American Families: has policies that will increase the value of the dollar and thus reducing the price of oil. In recent years, the declining value of the dollar has added to the cost of imported oil. This will change. Americans will have a stronger economy, a stronger dollar and greater purchasing power for oil, gas and food. Supports a summer gas tax holiday for hardworking American families who are suffering from higher gasoline prices.

Government Reform: Bring the budget to balance by 2013.  Three principles to balance include: Reasonable economic growth, comprehensive spending controls, and bi-partisanship in budget efforts. In the long-term, the only way to keep the budget balanced is successful reform of the large spending pressures in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Small business is the key to job growth.  Eliminate wasteful spending.

Supporting Small Businesses: lower energy costs, controlling health care costs, taxes will be simpler, fair, pro-growth, and competitive, and opening new markets.

 

Civil Rights –

Believes that one of the greatest threats to our liberty and the constitutional framework that safeguards our freedoms are willful judges who usurp the role of the people and their representatives and legislate from the bench. He plans to nominate judges who understand that their role is to faithfully apply the law as written, not impose their opinions through judicial fiat. We are a free people. This means that the rules we have agreed to live by are those made by the people themselves, not a small elite that claims to be wiser than everybody else.

 

Defense –

In a dangerous world, protecting America’s national security requires a strong military. Today, America has the most capable, best-trained and best-led military force in the world. But much needs to be done to maintain our military leadership, retain our technological advantae, and ensure that America has a modern, agile military force able to meet the diverse security challenges of the 21^st century. He is committed to ensuring that the men and women of our military remain the best, most capable fighting force on earth – and that our nation honors its promises to them for their service. Increase size of military, modernize armed services, smarter defense spending, taking care of military personnel and their families, and honoring the nation’s commitments to veterans and military retirees

 

Education –

Believes as a nation we need to be committed to equal opportunity, and there is no equal opportunity without equal access to excellent education. Public education should be defined as one in which our public support for a child’s education follows that child into the school the parent chooses. The school is charged with the responsibility of educating the child, and must have the resources and management authority to deliver on that responsibility. They must also report to the parents and the public on their progress. Believes schools can and should compete to be the most innovative, flexible and student-centered – not safe havens for the uninspired and unaccountable. He believes we should let them compete for the most effective, character-building teachers, hire them, and reward them.

 

Energy/Oil –

Wants to commit the country to expanding domestic oil exploration and believes in promoting and expanding the use of domestic supplies of natural gas. Clean car challenge, propose a 300 million dollar prize to improve battery technology for full commercial development of plug-in hybrid and fully electric automobiles, supports flex-fuel vehicles and believes they should play a greater role in transportation sector, believes alcohol-based fuels hold great promise as both an alternative to gasoline and as a means of expanding consumers choice, eliminate mandates, subsidies, tariffs and price supports that focus exclusively on corn-based ethanol and prevent the development of market-based solutions which would provide better options for fuel needs and lastly effectively enforce existing CAFÉ standards. Invest more in clean, alternative sources of energy.

 

Environment –

Proposes a cap-and-trade system that would set limits on greenhouse gas emissions while encouraging the development of low-cost compliance options. He will make greening the federal government a priority of his administration and will move the US toward electricity grid and metering improvements to save energy

 

Gay Marriage –

Believes marriage is only between a man and a woman not homosexual couples.

 

Gun Control –

Believes that the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is a fundamental, individual Constitutional right that people have a sacred duty to protect. People have a responsibility to ensure that criminals who violate the law are prosecuted to the fullest, rather than restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens. Gun control is a proven failure in fighting crime. Law abiding citizens should not be asked to give up their right because of criminals – criminals who ignore gun control laws anyway.

 

Health Care –

More choices, greater tax benefits, strengthen employer coverage.  His plan will result in average tax benefits of 1,200 dollars for American families. Believes that we can achieve saving in Medicare without reducing benefits or eligibility. Credit goes to the insurance company that the American family chooses to get coverage from, anywhere in the nation. Believes that no American should be denied access to quality and affordable coverage simply because of a pre-existing condition. His health plan builds on the employer-based system

 

Homeland Security –

McCain’s top priority. He will bring into his administration strong management at the federal level experienced in combating terrorist risks and in disaster response and recovery he will rely on existing relationships, and insist on forging stronger partnerships, with state and local officials; and he will work with the private sector and an informed citizenry to safeguard our security. Public private partnerships are an essential part of the entire homeland security efforts from planning to implementation and operations.

 

Immigration –

Securing boarders first then comprehensive immigration initiatives for a secure nation

 

Social Security – continue with funding and more attention/ security is advised.

 

Taxes –

 keep tax rates low, cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent, allow first-year deduction or “expensing” of equipment and technology investments, establish permanent tax credit equal to 10 percent of wages spend on R&D. ban new cell phone ad internet taxes.

 

War –

Support the successful counterinsurgency strategy, push for political reconciliation and good government, get iraq’s economy back on its feet, call for international pressure on Syria and iran. “I do not want to keep our troops in Iraq a minute longer than necessary to secure our interests there.”

 

Welfare – redistribute the wealth to families who need it most