Modern life confronts us with ever new problems. They appear because our society and science do not stand still; they develop and become more complicated. Many of the studies and discoveries that are being made today in the fields of human genetics are truly revolutionary. Such discoveries include the creation of the so-called human genome map, or pathological anatomy of the human genome. This essay will be dealing with the unexpected ethical aspects of cloning.
Cloning has both supporters and opponents.
It is supported by scientists who directly conduct similar experiments, and they are supported by doctors wishing to win by cloning many diseases. The most ardent opponent of this procedure is the church; therefore most theists believe that a person does not have the right to interfere in God’s business.
The definition of cloning can help to understand the matter. This term originally was used in microbiology and breeding, but now it is used in colloquial speech and is not highly specialized.
The term means the exact regeneration of an object an indefinite number of times. Human cloning is a special case. Cloning a person is the feasibility of creating a clone of a person who will reproduce the donor person not only externally, but also at the genetic level. This creates moral and legal problems in the form of the rhetorical question.
Moral and ethical issues include the following. Is it moral that a person appears artificially, and not naturally; whether people have the right to create their own kind (putting themselves in the place of nature)? There are also legal issues.
Should this procedure be prohibited or not, what is the legal regulation of the legal status of clones and what is the regulation of the procedure?
Now we can already talk about cloning as a fait accompli. It is enough to remember the Dolly1 lamb, cloned in 1996 which became famous for the whole world. It is an interesting fact here. Its creator categorically spoke out against the artificial regeneration of a human, considering such experiments immoral and illegal.
It is interesting to look at the upshot of opinion polls. Surveys showed that 68% of Americans favor cloning to create stem cells if these cells were used to treat the disease. In other words, they approve curative cloning. This outcome is due to the fact that stem cells, individually selected for a specific patient, reduce the risk of rejection. At the same time, a survey related to artificial regeneration shows completely different upshot. The upshot of the survey showed that 55.5% of respondents are against regeneration of a human and only 24% answered this question in the affirmative, and even under certain conditions. In most cases, people are moved by fear, which is inspired by fantasy, they believe that clones will enslave people. And, on the contrary, artificial regeneration will give famous people immortality.
It will also be interesting to look on the grounds that formed such views. The minds of many philosophers also occupied the feasibility of cloning a person. For example, in Nietzsche’s philosophy, there is a clear connection between the idea of the superman and the situation of the “death of God,” which entails the death of the foundations of traditional culture. Goethe in his work Faust talks about the creation of Wagner’s homunculus, or artificial man, while Mephistopheles is present during the creation. Some modern people also see the danger in it. They comprehend artificial regeneration as relationships with the devil.
Here is necessary to talk about religious views on this matter. Representatives of the church categorically prohibit cloning because of a premonition of danger, which is based on the very biblical worldview. In defense of their opinion, the representatives of the church literary quote the second chapter of Genesis that mentions the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. A person began his story with the violation of a prohibition. What will happen if a person touches the fruits from the tree of life?
Despite the fact that this issue is limited solely to the boundaries of biblical symbolism, it is worthwhile to think about it, because many researchers of ancient texts maintain that this symbolism is strong with deep ontological meaning. They think that it refers to something incomprehensible. In one of the works of the Catholic Cardinal Joseph, there are data that the issue of creating an artificial man according to preselected parameters is mentioned in the 13th century in the cabalistic Hebrew texts. Studying the ideas and symbols of ancient texts, one can come to the conclusion that behind the feasibility of artificial regeneration a person is the real power over the life and health of a person, over the very fact of his existence. This explains the church’s attitude.
O. Huxley in his novel “Brave New World” also addresses the problem of creating people by the given parameters. He believes that the genetic effect on the embryo allowed moving to a completely different level of civilization.
In conformity with the opponents of cloning, such experiments inevitably lead to biogenetic inequality. This will lead to social inequality. Many seriously question the ability of science to change the principles of democratic governance of society. At the same time, it is difficult to believe that the modern state and society can regulate the process of scientific investigation or at least control the pace of scientific progress.
Artificial regeneration of people has become an extremely popular science fiction story, and we’ve already despaired of waiting for him to step over from pages and screens into real life. Obstacles that stand between us can be connected with the process and with its potential consequences and ethical war. Although science had come a long way in this direction in the last century, when it came to cloning the menagerie of animals, humans, and primates, there were always insurmountable obstacles. It is feasible to underline the following obstacles to artificial regeneration. Cloning does not allow one to completely repeat the consciousness of a person. Scientists can not talk about the complete identity of the donor and cloned personality, and therefore the practical value of artificial regeneration is much lower than science fiction writers traditionally see it in their minds. It remains unclear how to create a place for a cloned person in society. What name should he have, how in his case to formalize paternity, motherhood, marriage and to solve legal issues of property and inheritance? Obviously, recreating a person on the basis of donor genetic material would require the emergence of a special public and legal niche. Its appearance would change the landscape of the familiar system of family and social relations in a great way. This process also has technological difficulties. This is due to the fact that the technology of cloning has not been developed yet, as an outcome of which a large number of unsuccessful attempts occur.
It is also feasibly to talk about social and ethical aspect. As the consequence of the fact that the technology is not worked out, there is a high probability of occurrence of a large number of defective clones. It is a threat to the whole human species.
There is also a great religious issue. Most religions are negative to the artificial regeneration of people. This is due to the fact that a person is “the creation of God,” and a person can not put himself in place of God and create clones for himself. This is the pride, and it is punishable. The legend of the Tower of Babel, described in the Bible serves as a vivid example of this, where the punishment was the confusion of languages.
Public opinion also plays an important role. Society does not object to curative cloning (despite the fact that there are ethical problems there), but sharply against artificial regeneration.
The last obstacle is legislative prohibitions. However, scientists say that even it would be allowed, it is unlikely to obtain a positive outcome. The cloning experiments were conducted on anthropoid apes by doing more than a hundred attempts, and none of which was successful.
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