Human Cloning Legal?
First of all, there are four types of cloning; molecular cloning, cellular cloning, organism cloning, and human cloning. Obviously, human cloning falls under categories human cloning and organism cloning. Organism cloning relates to cloning of a living creature, while human cloning refers to only humans. These types of cloning have reproduction in their process. This reproduction is strictly asexual. Asexual reproduction is when you basically clone someone; it is not the natural way a human being is born. Asexual reproduction is very common in plants, insects and some animals. Human cloning has never been executed successfully, mostly because it is illegal in most countries such as the USA and Canada. Human cloning is almost exactly like making another copy of yourself.
Here are the reasons why I think that should be illegal, and not be executed in any country in the world. Imagine this! You and your clone brother are walking down the street and suddenly, you hear gunfire. The police come and later on they blame your brother, Tom, that he shot the bullets. A week later, they sentence him to 6 months in jail. They’re about to send him in when they confuse the two of you and you (Ted), end up serving the 6 month sentence! I know this sounds very unrealistic; but, these types of situations can occur when there is two of each person. It would be chaos and it would cause so much commotion in law enforcement. You wouldn’t know who is who, and you might even get into Tom & Ted’s situation again.
The second reason is that you’re not unique, and you won’t feel special having someone copy you and do the exact same thing as you. You’re not different and don’t have the freedom of doing what you want to do because there will always be someone else doing that too. Emotions will hit many people and clones, and people might take it to the extreme of violence to others, nature, the world and even themselves. We don’t know the aftermath of all of this. Even the mothers will feel like they got cheated as they probably don’t want two of the same children. You will feel undistinguished and will have to live your life in multiples. Not only will you get affected, the people that have been cloned will feel like they weren’t supposed to be here and might commit suicide themselves. They are not real or original human beings and might feel like they don’t belong here.
The last and final reason is probably why human cloning is illegal in most countries. Creating another person, that’s not made naturally or biologically made by God crosses many religious and ethical boundaries. In most religions, God (whoever it may be) creates us all, and puts us on this earth for a reason. To make another one of yourself is not your job, by doing this you are not gaining anything. Some people call it playing with God, and others say that life begins at the moment of conception. Here is a youtube link that talks about what Islamic people have to say about Human cloning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTkf3KwB5NQ(Sorry, not good quality!) Non-religiously, the process of cloning is very hard and scientists have failed many times attempting this process. During these many attempt, hundreds of innocent babies have died. Many people believe that God doesn’t approve of this cloning, but all we know for a fact, is that many people are against cloning because of ethical and religious reasons.
In conclusion, I think cloning is not a good way to do anything. Even though cloning is good for people needing body transplants, there is another solution. You could always donate money to your local hospital to get other supplies while the patients wait for those transplants. I’d choose that over playing with God or nature. We’re all different, and having a clone just ruins being you, and I’m sure you don’t want to be stuck in Ted’s situation, or was it Tom? Overall, everything we start has to come to an end one day or another. In this case, other than Dolly the Sheep, human cloning has not yet started and in my opinion, it never should. But just in case, let’s try our best not to start human cloning, as it crosses ethical boundaries. I wouldn’t want to be Tom or Ted if I were you. So take a stand, and make human cloning illegal everywhere!
-Harshith Sridharan, 7E