Portfolio 5

PORTFOLIO 5 Li Lu
Potential Unethical Abuses of Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing populations of genetically-identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. When we mention human cloning, we usually refer to the creation of a genetically identical copy of an existing or previously existing human.
Although the practice of cloning has been widespread for several thousands of years in the form of horticultural cloning, the recent technological advancements that have allowed for cloning of animals (and potentially humans) have been highly controversial. Many people believe it is unethical to fully develop the technology of human cloning due to the following two reasons.
Firstly, the procedure of asexual reproduction will totally destroy people’s concept of generation. Cloning breaks down the conventional pattern of procreation and change the traditional thought that females can only give birth to children after sexual intercourse with males. In this way, it can topple down people’s knowledge of moral principles and change our worldview. Once the sexual reproduction is expanded to asexual reproduction, it has a deep influence on every one and may lead to the disappearance of many fundamental relationships in the society such as husband and wife, or father and son. As a consequence, it results in a negation of humanity.
Secondly, human cloning does harm to people’s dignity. “Coping People” may be of great significance in the science and technological field, but it brings along a very important problem----it challenges human dignity. Human beings are produced in a lab just as common goods storing in a container, and the production----the so-called “cloning people” are not real humans, but an automatic machine with a human shape. Every life is unique and each of us has different personalities, which is totally exploited while cloning.
The two reasons above are the potential unethical abuses of human cloning. In my opinion, the best way to minimize these abuses is the prohibition of human cloning. After all, although it is technologically possible, it may not get a good result in the society. However, we can still benefit a lot from this advanced technology. For example, we can clone more food so that people can get rid of starvation. What is more, if we can manage this procedure well, we will be able to reconstruct functional DNA from extinct species and consequently, the diversity of the nature will recover, which has been a dream of human beings for decades.