Stem Cell Research/Cloning: Potential Ethical/Moral Problems

You open your mouth for your first breathe of air only to be surprised by large amount of fluid that comes rushing in instead. You quickly open your eyes and start to panic. Where is the air you wish to breathe? A doctor notices you and your struggle and quickly pulls you out of a small plastic container filled with some sort of fluid. He calms you down while noticing that you have a rather unpleasant birthmark on your side. He calls another doctor over and they start to talk to each other. They finally decide to discard you and let you drop unaware into a large stove to destroy their mistake project. Has this happened yet? No, the more important question we should ask is will it ever happen. The question of the ethical problems that may arise once we get so far into cloning have a few different viewpoints. Some countries have had headlong crashes with people who feel very strongly about whether this should be done at all.

The topic of banning the whole process of cloning came up at an international meeting. Member and non-members attended the meeting to hear about this new development. Just the talk of this global law to ban Cloning of humans all together has started some heated debates (Shanin 255). Our own country, the USA, has gotten into this topic as well. President Bush has made several statements concerning his stance on cloning and they seem to be in line with the stance that the House of Representatives have taken as well. The House of Representatives passed a law in 2001, by a 265 to 162 vote, which makes it illegal to clone for just about any purpose (Shanin 255). This not only has our country hotly debating the whole topics of cloning other countries are having the same problem.

The christen democrats how are in charge of the European Parliament want to ban everything to do with cloning even down to the transfer of cell nuclei. Some others in the Parliament wish to try and compromise with some areas such as donations on the ground that if they didn’t the governments could rightly close down tissue banks or at least destroy there record keeping (Rogers 1354). A few citizens have now decided to take their own stands on this topic and get their voices heard. One of these citizens, a Jonathan Colvin, decided to do some research on the topic and went around interviewing his neighborhood. He found that while most of the people agreed that it should be banned there reasons why where a little lacking (Colvin 39). The voices of these people are trying to prove that fears of most of the nations are falsely placed.

Jonathan Colvin’s interviews found that most of the people believed in rather far-fetched ideas. Some of the more popular ideas are that we might have a whole team of seven-foot tall identical giants on the same basketball team. Another idea that I found quite funny was the fear that we would create another Hitler, or even a Frankenstein. He would rather see cloning as something a little less sinister. Colvin brings up the idea of twins and how most of us don’t see them as evil yet they in themselves are clones that nature made through a couple of loops. He goes on to say that if we don’t fear the ones that nature makes why should we fear the ones we make (Colvin 39)? Some others decided to take a more noticeable way of getting their points around.

Around 1998 to 1999 a physicist said that he was going to open a cloning clinic in Chicago to practice the uses of cloning and eventuality clone his wife. Along with this a Canadian cult, the Raelians, have decided to try and open clinics as well. The cult believes that this could be the last frontier in the sterility of men (Pickrell 2061). While some of the steps may be a little drastic some people believe that they are necessary to prove that cloning is not a bad thing.

A third look at this is not to ban it because it is "evil" but to at least limit it because of the harm that it can cause. The clones have a high rate of birth defects and when they do get a birth defect it happens to be on a larger scale then when humans get it. The percents for birth defects are as follows 34% achieve fatal or mortal threatening birth defects, while an additional 45% of these get less then fatal, though still serious, birth defect. That is about 79%, as both of the figures were rounded, of clones that get birth defects (Holden and Kaiser 601). Not to mention some of the other fears of people that have been raised up are a little more realistic. Some fear that by cloning people we would create a class of sub-humans, or humans that are not quite are equals because they were cloned. Others fear that the Constitution of the USA or other laws that prohibit killing of younger children will not protect them, and that it will give legal causes to keep mercy killings allowed (Holden and Kaiser 602). They just think that the risks of cloning out way the possible help that it could do for the human race as a whole.

Taking a look at the objects of human cloning would help us in taking a side on this matter. However, the sides for human cloning are too vast. Most of them are not even clearly defined (Gogarty 84). Some just say some they wish to use cloning techniques to make necessary organs for people who need them. This brings up the questions of what parts would they clone? Is it really necessary to clone another human and kill them for these organs? I can see that we are on a short supply of hearts for a person that need them, but is it really ok to create life just to kill it? In light of the small nagging voice asking all of these questions I can see how some people have there doubts about cloning. The future of cloning is very unclear.

Researches are not even sure that if we are able to clone that half or more of the hopes that we have for cloning will even be able to be obtained. The are not making a lot of progress in the field and everyday it seems that the future of cloning as a useful tool is becoming more of a hope and a science fiction story then reality. Not to mention that most of the possible uses for cloning have other ways in which to fill the need that cloning is trying to fill. For example, research in close by fields to cloning have shown that with the use of stem cells from you a doctor could most likely make a medicine that will help you heal faster and recover from some nasty wounds with little to no scare even if the wound would have had a huge nasty one (Anonymous 261).

The law becomes one of the last concerns. What exactly are the laws? Well we have the one stated earlier in the paper that was put up by the House of Representatives in the USA, but what other laws are there? Great Britain has almost the same stance that we have as well as France and Germany. However, in Ireland it is only prohibited to have a publicly funded clinic running. All private funded research is completely legal. Japan has gone a step further then the USA and made it so that if it even catches you with stem cells, a major component of a few medical researches and a major component of cloning as well, that it can slap you with a minimal sentence of 10 years and a healthy fine. Most of Europe has taken an untied front on laws about cloning. They mostly take after Irelands approach to laws against cloning. On the flip side there are a few counties that not only legalized it they allow other researchers from countries where it is illegal to come over and use there facilities to practice and further the knowledge pool of cloning (Shanin 256-257). While this may seem a little unethical to let those who were told not to clone to clone there is no law against it yet. They are trying to get a couple of laws passed in United Nations that will either force other countries to ban cloning, or at least public funded cloning, or deport anyone that is not a legal citizens of that country and is practicing stem cell research (Shanin 255).

After judging all the possible pros and cons I still think that we should limit cloning to research only and forbid cloning of humans at this point in time. Until we can take the right measure to protect the clones from birth defects and mercy killing, it is still a life; I think that we should steer away from cloning at this time. While some of the backlash of not having the cures that could come with cloning will backfire on us if we do halt it in this manner I consider them a minor loss to the possible things that could go wrong. Also as there is in about any major concern where human plays like a god, we should be careful that we do not over step the bound of moral and ethical limits. I would also like to add that we should not just try to find a way to ignore the laws that are already set up for us by people like us.

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Works Cited

Shanin, Elizabeth L. "International response to human cloning." Chicago Journal of International Law 3.1 (2002): 255-61.

Roger, Arthur. "Ethics debate almost derails European cloning vote." The Lancet 361.9366 (2003): 1354.

Colvin, Jonathan. "Me, My clone and I." The Humanist 60.3 (2000): 39.

"The moral case against cloning for biomedical research" Issues in Law and Medicine 18.3 (2003): 261-74.

Pickrell, John. "Experts assail plan to help childless couples." Science 291.5511 (2001): 2061-63.

Holden, Constance, Jocelyn Kaiser. "Report backs ban; ethics panel debuts." Science 295.5555 (2002): 601-2.

Gogarty, B. "What exactly is an exact copy? And why it matters when trying to ban human reproductive cloning in Australia." Journal of Medical Ethics 29.2 (2003): 84-9.