Blog7-Mrs Pamela-Song Zhuokun(Kevin)-Science and Technology

   My Opinions about "Human Cloning"

    Since the emergence of Dolly, cloning has no longer been just an issue that is remote from our lives. We can use this technology to "copy" whatever we like. But can we apply cloning to human beings? In my view, "human cloning" is a toss-up. There will be both beneficial and negative effects if we put "human cloning" into practice.
  
    First, we human beings can get a big benefit through "human organ cloning". Recently, a piece of news deeply shocked me. It was said that a Chinese old woman sold her grandson to an "organ-dealer" in order to get some money for herself. Nowadays, there is a growing number of people having diabetes, heart disease, and so forth. And all these people want to do is to find the organs that can "match up" their bodies. This phenomenon of "organ-trading" gives organ dealers a chance to get wealthy as well as to commit crimes. However, if we can take out some cells of patients and then use these cells to clone their organs, there will be not only a higher probability of organ transplanting, but also a lower crime chance of organ trading.


    Nevertheless, some negative effects will also emerge if we put "human cloning" into practice. First, cloning is a kind of asexual propagation which is against the "natural law". If we clone someone, there will be two same person in the world. Then, who will be more important? Do they have equal rights? Do they have the same "human personhood"? Until now, our ethics cannot give clear answers. Second, we cannot "produce" the absolutely same person by cloning. That is to say,  we can only clone someone's appearance but not his personalities. To illustrate, many couples who lose their kids want their dead children to "be resurrected" by cloning. However, such "substitutes" will only have the dead children's bodies but not characters, because the personalities which cloning children will have can be only determined by postnatal cultivation. Thus, such kind of cloning children may make these couples very disappointed and even regret their decisions of cloning their dead kids.

    In a nutshell, there will be both beneficial and negative effects if we carry out "human cloning". In my viewpoint, we can put "human organ cloning" into practice to relieve the pain of patients but not to execute "human cloning" which will bring disasters to us. Let's hope cloning will do us more benefits in the future.