The Issue of Human Cloning

            
             The subject of human cloning is a topic of major discussion in today's society. There are major advances being made in science. From the discovery of DNA in the fifties, the conception of the Human Genome Project in the eighties and the cloning of Dolly in 1996; it seems that the science is advancing in leaps and bounds. So with the thought that the cloning of mammals was years away, how long will it be before humans are cloned? This is a scary topic for most people because cloning is a major challenge to the most fundamental laws of reproduction. This is where a lot of the ethical opposition comes from. Subsequently, on the basis of unproved technological safety, ethics surrounding human individuality, many of the psychological factors that cloned children would have to deal with, societal issues such as family life, and the consequential devaluation of natural reproduction; I believe that human cloning should be banned. .
             Before considering the ethics of human cloning the issues of safety must first be considered. The present cloning technology is elementary. Ian Wilmut a Scottish embryologist who was part of the research team that cloned Dolly knows about the safety issues surrounding cloning. Wilmut states in his article "Dolly's False Legacy" that; .
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             "The incident of death among fetuses and offspring produced by cloning is much higher than it is through natural reproduction-roughly ten times higher before birth and three times as high after birth" (488). Jeff Lyon's article, "Playing God: Has Science Gone To Far?" seconds the dangers of cloning saying that "Most cloned animals die in the womb, and even those that initially seem healthy often develop fatal defects of the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain and immune system down the road" (492). This argument of the rudimentary technology in cloning also relates ethically. How many failed attempts will it take to perfect human cloning? Hundreds, maybe thousands of fetuses, newborns and children could die.