This blog post looks at human cloning from various perspectives to see whether it is a remarkable progress in biotechnology or a dangerous choice that crosses the boundaries of ethics and life.
“Is it okay to do it if we can?” In the rapidly developing and evolving world of biotechnology, things that were unimaginable just a decade ago are now becoming possible. Genetic cloning is one of the most representative examples. Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal created by science in 1997, caused a lot of controversy. As the first animal to be cloned perfectly, Dolly raised both expectations and concerns, and this sparked a debate on whether it would be possible to clone humans beyond animal cloning. Human cloning is a sensitive topic that deals with human life and therefore has many problems. Personally, I am against human cloning. Considering the risks and ethical issues of the experiment, I believe that human cloning has more harmful than beneficial aspects. In this essay, I will first look at the concept and possibility of human cloning, and then compare the pros and cons to examine the main points of the debate.
First, it is necessary to define what human cloning is. In movies and novels, human cloning is often used to create a human being that is physically and mentally identical, but this is not possible with modern technology. In fact, human cloning is the creation of genetically identical humans, and the cloned life does not have the thoughts or memories of the original human. To be precise, human cloning means “cloning human genes.” The media has presented a number of horrific scenarios, including the cloning of a dead person to bring them back to life, the mass cloning of people to use them as slaves, and the commodification of humans, which has led to the public being misled into thinking that human cloning is the creation of cloned humans. In reality, human cloning technology involves extracting the nucleus of a specific person’s somatic cell, removing the existing nucleus of an egg, and inserting it to grow a cloned embryo.
Advocates of human cloning emphasize that it can help patients with incurable diseases and infertile couples. For example, if a couple with a recessive gene for a fatal disease has a child naturally, the child is likely to have the disease, but cloning can give birth to a child with only one of the parents’ genes. In addition, even an infertile couple suffering from oligospermia or azoospermia can have a child with their own genes through somatic cell nuclear transfer.
The arguments of the opposing side mainly stem from the fact that human cloning is unethical. The first reason is that there is a possibility that innocent lives will be sacrificed until the technology for human cloning is successfully developed. Although there have been no official cases of human cloning, considering the low success rate of animal cloning, the probability of success for human cloning is also low. In the case of Dolly the sheep, 276 errors occurred, including stillbirths and malformations, before the successful cloning. Since sheep have four times the fertility of humans, it is calculated that about 1,000 fertilizations are required to create a human clone. Even if fertilized eggs are created and implantation takes place, most of the 100 eggs are likely to be aborted, and even the cloned babies who are born are expected to die from serious side effects such as heart wall defects, spinal defects, hydrocephalus, partial absence of lungs, and immune deficiency. There is a big question as to whether there is a reason to clone humans at such a high cost.
Even if they succeed, there are limits to the life of the cloned organism. Due to the aging of the genes, the cloned organisms are at risk of dying prematurely. In fact, Dolly the cloned sheep lived for six years and died, which is less than the average lifespan of a sheep of 12 years. Since the sheep that provided the genes to Dolly was six years old, Dolly inherited genes that were already aged. This phenomenon occurs because of a DNA structure called telomeres, which determine the number of cell divisions. When genes are replicated, telomeres are also replicated, so even in newly born organisms, the lifespan of genes is already reduced. Dolly also showed symptoms of aging, such as arthritis and progressive lung disease. Through this, Time magazine reported that “what scientists have realized since Dolly is that cloning is an imperfect process.”
Second, cloned humans can disrupt social order. Humans inherit genes from their parents and become part of the family as their children. However, this concept does not apply to cloned humans. From a biological perspective, cloned humans are just identical twins born later than the original human. From a social perspective, the situation becomes more complicated. A cloned human being, which is modeled on the original human’s genes, is confused as to whether it should be called the original human’s parent or brother or sister. As such, the fundamental identity issue of cloned humans will lead to confusion and negatively affect the concept of the family, which is the basic unit of society. Ultimately, human cloning should be banned as a technology that has the potential to disrupt social order.
The strongest voices in the anti-human cloning debate come from religious groups, especially Christianity. Unlike the aforementioned arguments against human cloning, Christians oppose it for religious reasons. Christian conservatives argue that human cloning is a challenge to God and an act of destroying the order of creation. The creation order as described in Christianity refers to the process in which a man and a woman fall in love, have a child through sexual intercourse, and the child grows up in the love of the parents, establishes their identity, and connects the society and the human race. On the other hand, human cloning is born without sexual intercourse and can have multiple parents, which destroys the traditional family system. The Christian side believes that human beings being commodified or instrumentalized through human cloning is an act that violates God’s law.
As history shows, the development of science and technology does not always proceed according to human intent. Science is like a double-edged sword. Human cloning is like a Pandora’s box with various possibilities, which can give infertile couples children and prevent disabilities, but there is a risk of commodifying humans and losing their dignity. Therefore, we must be equipped with the wisdom of ethics and morality when dealing with human cloning so that it does not harm humanity. As I mentioned earlier, I am against human cloning. Although human cloning is not technically possible at the moment, many countries have not banned research, so we must remain vigilant. Strong opposition will prevent the sacrifice of innocent lives for research.
