the advantages of cloning

            
             Cloning is when you take one thing and make an exact replica of it. Is cloning right or wrong? This is a question that has been raised by many people in the past few years. Many argue that cloning is wrong because of ethical purposes and its disrespect for humanity. The U.S House of Representatives voted to stop cloning. The penalties for cloning included up to ten years in prison and a $1 million fine to anyone convicted for trying to clone humans. Nevertheless, the U.S Senate never took up the issue, so it did not become a law. The Catholic Church also emphasizes that cloning violates Catholic teaching that life begins at conception. Although all these reasons are acceptable, I believe that cloning should not be viewed as a negative thing because it has advantages that could help a lot of people and animals.
             First of all, many people would benefit from therapeutic cloning. Therapeutic cloning is the creation of human embryos used for medical purposes. Researchers protected the progress by saying they wanted to use the cloned embryos to harvest stem cells, rather than to create babies. Stem cells can be used to treat an immense amount of diseases, such as: diabetes, strokes, cancer, and AIDS. I believe this is a great thing because many people out there are suffering and could benefit from this. For example, a young woman Shauna Anderson said, "I"m a 29-year-old girl who's dying of kidney failure, that if I don't get an organ donor by the time I need to have a transplant, I"m dead." (From Odyssey Weekly) It is people such as Shauna that makes a person question the validity of cloning. Why should a young people with their whole lives ahead of them have to resort to death? Many countries around the world are strongly considering cloning because of this. Britain recently made a final national policy allowing cloning research. Chinese scientists also claimed they had already cloned dozens of human embryos for that purpose.