1997 was a very important year in biomedical history. In that very year Ian Wilmut, an embryologist, published an article in the world- famous scientific journal Nature on his team being successful to clone a mammal. That mammal was the world- famous Dolly the sheep. Since then, the prospect of human cloning seemed closer and closer to reality. Ethical and legal issues sprung from everywhere. Major leaders like President Clinton discussed over the ethnicity of human cloning. The ethnicity of cloning became, and now is still, a very debatable subject- From the rights of an individual to the freedom of scientific inquiry; the topics on human cloning seemed never to end. However, we have to ask ourselves: Is the subject of human cloning worth to pursue? Human cloning can aid in fertility, reduce the risk of transmitting a hereditary disease to the offspring and enable a person to obtain needed organs for transplant.
Human cloning is a new mean to rid infertility for infertile couples. Females who cannot ovulate or men who cannot produce sperm can use human cloning to produce a biologically related offspring. According to the National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction (NABER), “Embryos might also be cloned, either by nuclear transfer or embryo splitting, in order to increase the number of embryos for implantation and improve the chances of successful conception”. Other solutions to infertility are less favorable than human cloning. One such example is adoption. While there are many children in the world waiting for adoption, many couples are not prepared to ‘discount’ their children as illegitimate- This is a major social issue that can be further debated. Another solution is surrogacy, but surrogacy also has its own moral issues to tackle, and there have been cases of the surrogate mother not returning the child to the biological father.
Probably the biggest advantage of human cloning is the technique which allows couples to reduce the risk of transmitting a hereditary disease or harmful condition to the offspring. According to the Human Genome Project, life threatening hereditary diseases does exist- From sickle cell anemia to Klinefelter’s syndrome; these diseases can be prevented simply by human cloning. Of course, other alternatives do exist, but they also have their own implication. An example would be using donor egg or sperm, but is unacceptable in most couples because it introduces a third- party gene to the gene pool.
The problem of rejected organs or tissues during a transplant would be solved by human cloning. Normally, when a person, known as a ‘host’, needs a transplant, he or she may face a chance of rejecting the transplanted organ or tissue because the body recognizes the transplanted tissue or organ as a foreign body, and thus the host’s body will try to attack the transplanted organ. However, if the tissue or organ is cloned, it has the exact genetic makeup of the host’s lost tissue or organ. This dramatically reduces the rate of rejection.
However, arguments against human cloning have arisen. One famous example is known as ‘genetic determinism’. In layman terms, genetic determinism bases the logic on the fact that the clone would have the same genetic material as the original, therefore the clone’s life is ‘mapped out’- The clone’s life is determined by the original person’s life of which the latter had lived through already. However, this basis is illogical because a person’s life and personality is determined not only by the genetic material, but also the surrounding environment the human has been brought up in. After all, humans change their thinking and personality due to the influence of the surrounding. An analogy is to clone Albert Einstein, the theoretical physicist famous for his theory of special and general theory of relativity. If the clone of Albert Einstein had not been through the exact surroundings as the original Albert Einstein (which is most probable), then the clone might not be a genius in the end.
Throughout the years, human cloning has been heavily criticized by people around the world. It used to be science fiction, but now a science fact, stirring intense emotions in many individuals. Human cloning has been recognized as a violation of human or moral rights, causing confusions such as genetic determinism or lack of human identity. On the other hand this topic has been regarded as a ‘life savior’, saving the lives of children about to be born with genetically inherited diseases. Whether human cloning is a boon or bane, the moral and ethical issues on this topic still remains debatable.
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