Is It Ethical or Not? Essay

This study examined the ethical aspect of human cloning. By considering the promises and perils which it could bring to mankind as well as by scrutinizing the arguments of both supporters and opponents of employment of human cloning the study tried to define whether human cloning can be regarded as unethical procedure. The argumentation considered in the study testifies that there is not unanimous consent among the scholars as to ethical justifiability of human cloning, although the most scepticism of its opponents could be easily rebutted. In sum, the study demonstrated that human cloning can and has to be regarded as ethical procedure provided that it is properly used, as it promises substantial advantages in treating infertility, in transplantology and other branches of medical science. On February 22, 1997, the news that scientists had cloned an adult animal – the sheep Dolly – spread round the globe (Cantrell, 1998, p. 69). Unsurprisingly, as the possibility of cloning humans emerged on the horizon, people were worrying about the morality of using the new technology. Then and now they have been anxious about the ethical borders that might be crossed when duplicate humans can be produced by separating the cells of a newly fertilized human egg or, in the more distant future, by creating a zygote from an existing person’s genetic material. When Dolly’s birth was announced, countries throughout the world had already initiated efforts to prohibit human cloning. Australia, Denmark, United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain are among the countries outlawing human cloning (Walters, 2004, p. 5). Opposition came from other groups, including the World Health Organization, numerous religious bodies such as the Vatican, and even the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. Outlawed in one way or another by numerous nations, damned by the General Assembly of the World Health Organization as â€Å"ethically unacceptable and contrary to human integrity and morality†, prohibited by the European Commission with its Biotechnology Patents Directive, by the Council of Europe with its Bioethics Convention, and by UNESCO with its Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, without a doubt human cloning received massive disapproval (Gillon, 2001, p. 184). But not all scholars agreed with those conclusions and many did not support such rapid passing of banning legislations on human cloning (Childress, 2003, p. 17). The purpose of this study is to reveal whether human cloning is really unethical as the public opinion and most governments consider it. Toward this end we will investigate the advantages and weaknesses of human cloning, explore carefully the arguments of both advocates and opponents of it, consider possible consequences of human cloning implementation in our life, and make the conclusions. For an entire planet standing at a critical crossroads, cloning offers both promises and perils. For humans the promises extend into all sorts of possibilities, such as finding drugs that would alleviate serious diseases, cultivating one’s own bone marrow as well as solid organs for transplantation, and genetically altering animals such as pigs in order to provide perfectly compatible organs for transplantation into humans. As an extension of reproductive techniques, the possibilities in human cloning promise ways both to relieve infertility and to prevent the transmission of genetic diseases (Brannigan, 2001b, p. 241). There are also disturbing possibilities, particularly when we consider what is traditionally regarded as the nucleus of society – the family, for which enough radical changes have already taken place in the past century. As we have moved into the twenty-first century, human cloning may pose the ultimate challenge to our notions of family, and its possibilities pose special hazards because the field of reproductive technology is without any real government regulation or oversight. And extreme caution will be needed to prevent the kind of profiteering that human cloning may engender (McGee, 2000, p. 267). Indeed, human cloning profoundly challenges our deepest and most cherished beliefs about what it means to be human. It impressively duns mankind of the radical nature of the connection between ontology and morality. The questions raised by human cloning reveal all the more plainly the intimate rapport among matters of identity, meaning, and morality.