With an understanding of our own temporality, I live with an unsatable fear of untimely demise . As such, I cannot wholly embrace the reality of a world of incurable disease. And, with this clear understanding, I must embrace a fleeting life without reprieve. The reality that this fleeting life could possibly be substantially prolonged excites some while installing fear in others; proponents of human cloning see a world of possibility while the critics find the potential dangers to be alarming. The overwhelming capability to possibly curb the fatal effects of numerous diseases would change many lives; cancer, aids, and the numerous diseases that haut our society today could possibly become a side thought if cloning were to be perfected and legalized. But the scientific methods required to perfect this disputable process form a complex binary that haunts our society today.

Human cloning is an issue that has been debated and researched extensively. Since the first successful cloning attempt was made on Dolly the sheep, a new concept in ethics has been established. The successful cloning of Dolly has made the cloning issue a living concern; Dolly’s existence forces us to consider the ethics of the situation because it challenges the assertion that cloning is impossible or immoral. Cloning is a valid subject for ethical debate as it cruises the very cutting edge of scientific discovery while dancing dangerously close to interfering with the natural creation and destruction of human life. The fact that artificial procreation is almost at the tip of our fingers, excites some, while at the same time installs fear in others. The effects human cloning could have on an individual’s life are dramatic. Diseases, life threatening accidents, and all other illnesses could become a non-issue, if cloning was perfected and then legalized ; life without these entities would dramatically change. The thought that a human might possess the capacity of something so powerful, is so precious it must be approached with serious thought. The possibilities human cloning could reveal seem to be endless; from an evil scientist abusing these powers, to the discovery of the cure to cancer; this variance shows the uncertainty in how cloning would truly affect our society.  

Human cloning is such a vast topic , that many forget the steps involved in this intricate process. In order for any type of cloning to be feasible, stem-cells must be available. Stem cell research, a very public debate today, creates a binary on its own; is it ethical to use stem cells in order to allow the possibility for saving others to exist? In order for stem cell research to be possible, a human embryo must be available. In some cases the scientists will use aborted embryo’s which introduces an entirely new controversial argument; abortion.

Abortion may be the most prevalent binary to exist in our society today. It will play a crucial roll in the upcoming presidential election and is a critical topic that our government must deal with. Human cloning may seem involved enough on the surface but if you examine the sublevels of this binary you can see the true depth of this argument. To try and debate human cloning you must not only encompass the complicated issues of cloning but you must also include the corollaries of both abortion and stem-cell research.

Within the human cloning debate there are two clear sides ; for and against it.

The one side of this binary, those who approve of the future of human cloning, present many arguments that attract many different followers who could benefit from cloning; one example would be the possibility for an infertile couple to be able to produce a baby, something that was once deemed impossible. The majority of married couples have the privilege to create an offspring in our society today. But in the case when the possibility of having a child is diminished for any reason, most of these parents seem to look at cloning as a positive option. The fact that a child could now exist with one of the parent’s genes, through human cloning, is very alluring to the couple. Someone might ask, “why not just adopt?” But many people prefer an offspring that possesses the DNA structure of at least one of the parents, which makes cloning a more alluring process then adoption in this case.

The next step to human cloning would be to clone just the organs and cells inside of human beings. Although many believe this to be a harmful tactic as well, the possibilities it could create seem very appealing to many. The cloning of organs for organ transplants plays a major role in this cloning struggle. To be able to replace an ailing organ without having to take it from another human being could save numerous lives by eliminating the shortage of organ donors.

Although the supporters o f cloning create many valid points they seem to contradict themselves. The believers of cloning are claiming that cloning is for the betterment of the human race; yet at the same time the whole process is very harmful to certain humans. Even though living human beings are not being directly affected, sometimes human embryos are taken from aborted fetuses in order to supply the scientist with ample stem-cells for their research. Even though human cloning may be, in effect, to create cures for the future, in the short term, the critics of cloning say the process kills future humans. The abortion of a fetus, in the eyes of some, is the simple act of taking away a babies opportunity at life. So in this argument, they are destroying in hope to create, it does not seem to make sense.

Those who reject the idea of human cloning provide several justifiable arguments as well. There seems to be one underlying theme in many of these arguments; the negative possibilities human cloning could have on each individual and in turn the complete society. When Dolly the sheep was cloned it took 277 attempts before Dolly was cloned successfully. To critics, the idea that that multiple fetuses would be aborted in order to research just the possibility of human cloning, seems to be an immoral loss. From an evolutionary standpoint, cloning seems to prove very costly. Throughout time we have let nature take its course, humans evolved through natural selection not through synthetic processes. To halt this process, by introducing science to try and manipulate procreation, completely contradicts what has brought us to this point in the evolutionary progression. Although cloning does create many possibilities, it in some way it creates a single man-made reality opposed to an open-ended future for our society. There is no telling where the natural evolutionary process, that has developed the human species to where we are now, will lead us.

And then there is the ethical argument; is it ethical for us humans to have control over the miracle of life? Although there is no physical proof of there being a superior-being; the miracle of life is still something humans have never had the power to control. Even if no divine being exists, this power is something almost entirely new to everyone. The ability to clone humans would empower to the human race the capability to manipulate our own offspring; this power helps drive the controversy over the ethics of cloning.

Although this side does create many valid points, it also seems to contradict itself. One of their leading arguments is the negative effect cloning would have on a human beings health; where in reality this is exactly what cloning is trying to cure. Although cloning may be taking a future life away, it creates a tradeoff in the sense that lives will be saved at the cost of other “lives”. Especially in the case of organ cloning, the whole idea is to end up at a point where diseases, that haunt our society today, can eventually become as curable as the common headache. So in the end, the supporters of cloning are trying to protect the human race, while at the same time destroying the possibility of certain medical advances.

Politics and religion are two subjects that are often avoided in casual conversation because of how they stir such strong emotion. Add a little futuristic science into these two topics and you have all the ingredients, just as cloning does, for a monumental rhetorical battle. So far, the way the cloning issue has been approached, has brought nothing but, how Martin Luther King Jr. put it, a “negative peace”. All the controversy and arguing that has occurred up to this point has only caused more tension between the opposing sides without coming to the point of physical violence. And although there are highly intelligent and seriously good and moral people on both sides of this issue; one of the few things each side can agree upon, is the fact that the subject of cloning is a discussion that is not going to end any time soon.

If the cloning debate were dissected, we could try and see some kind of solution to solve the controversy. The supporters of cloning say that the positive possibilities are endless while those that oppose cloning would say the short term effects are not worth any future possibilities. If we were to take away this short-term harm, then shouldn’t the two sides agree on the issue of cloning? Both sides will agree that a world with more cures and solutions for unanswered plagues, in our society today, is something greatly desired, as long as there are no serious repercussions. Of course it may seem far fetched, but if scientists were to change their focus from the cloning, as we see it today, to a type of cloning that inflicted no harm in any form, the entire controversy of cloning would be solved.