Cloning and Human Engineering the Term Paper

Thinkers and writers like Jeremy Rifkin, author of the Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World, voice their opposition to cloning. He and others are concerned that cloning with provide unethical incentives. "...we believe that the market for women's eggs that would be created by this research will provide unethical incentives for women to undergo health-threatening hormone treatment and surgery." (Statement in Support of Legislation to Prohibit Cloning) Furthermore, as Rifkin states:

We are also concerned about the increasing bio-industrialization of life by the scientific community and life science companies and shocked and dismayed that clonal human embryos have been patented and declared to be human "inventions." We oppose efforts to reduce human life and its various parts and processes to the status of mere research tools, manufactured products, commodities and utilities. We are also deeply troubled that at present there is no legal or ethical framework in place to regulate the accelerated commercial exploitation of this research.

Biotech Century: Anti-Cloning Initiative)

4. Conclusion

While cloning presents many new medial possibilities, it also faces many counter arguments and assertions that these medical advances will result in a danger to society in both a practical as well as a moral and ethical sense. There are also arguments from within the scientific community against human engineering. One view is that cloning may in fact retard advances in medical science. For example; "The California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative suffers from several major faults; fiscal, bureaucratic, scientific, and moral/ethical problems. Several provisions of the initiative are of questionable use and may actually hinder the medical cures it purports to encourage." (Deem R.)

The most worrying aspect of cloning is that if it is accepted and allowed to become just another scientific and medical process or procedure, will it affect fundamental societal aspects such as the family in a negative sense? There is also the alarming possibly that cloning techniques may be abused for economic purpsoes and this in turn raises the specter of commercially produced babies, for example. These are important issues and questions which have to be borne in kind in evaluating these advances in medical science and human engineering.

References

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Pope Rejects Cloning. Retrieved April 27, 2007, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506EFD9163FF93AA15751C1A9649C8B63&n=Top%2fNews%2fScience%2fTopics%2fCloning

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Darnovsky M. (2002) Embryo Cloning and Beyond. Retrieved April 27, 2007, at http://www.genetics-and-society.org/resources/cgs/200207_tikkun_darnovsky.html

More stem cell research advances. Retrieved April 27, 2007, at http://www.biopeer.com/biopeer/stem_cells/index.html

Pope Rejects Cloning. (2002) Retrieved April 27, 2007, at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506EFD9163FF93AA15751C1A9649C8B63

Statement in Support of Legislation to Prohibit Cloning. Retrieved April 27, 2007, at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020218/petition