Today, the topic of cloning generates more argument then it has ever created before. The controversy over cloning is based, in part on the fact that there are extreme opposing viewpoints on the subject. Also a major factoring the debate over cloning is a fear of new technology. Throughout history, man has always been slow to adapt to a new technology. We go through all the trouble to adapt to one method, why uproot ourselves and change everything just to do it a different way. This attitude has been evident in the recent past, with inventions such as the automobile and television. Nuclear power is a prime example of an advanced technology abandoned out of fear. There are very few nuclear power plants left in operation, and there are no new plants being built. This is mainly due to fear of an accident, or to the long lasting effects of this technology.
As with everything, including cloning, there is a negative side. With television, the negative is that children often watch it instead of doing homework, subsequently causing lower grades. It is also believed that television violence influences children into more violent tendencies. A negative to automobiles is the massive pollution a large number of them cause. Entire cities have been put on pollution alert due to toxic smog created, in part by the automobile. Sometimes the negatives outweigh the positives, and the technology is rightfully abandoned, in most cases the technology is abandoned simply out of fear.
Cloning is not just any new technology, cloning gives us the potential to change the very essence of our being; what we are can be decided before we are even born. There are immense positives to cloning; the human life span lengthened by decades, mental and physical illness a distant memory just as with any thing new, we start with small steps, and move into big ones. In cloning, we started with simple genetic alterations.
