Organ Cloning Beneath the Surface

Thousands of people a year are placed on the organ donor's list and diagnosed with diseases that are dubbed fatal unless a transplant or transfusion is given. This has created a large demand for some alternative method to the present donor practice. Research in the "taboo" science of cloning seems to provide a viable method in which to aid the problem aforementioned and many others as well. But is it ethical?

Cloning technology is expected to aid the result in several medical breakthroughs. It is thought that there may one day be a cure for cancer. This is because the cloning process helps us understand the process of cell differentiation. Theories exist that if a cure for cancer can be found, then further testing may lead to a cure for heart attacks and cloning organs for organ transplantation. Scientists believe that they may be able to treat heart attack victims by cloning their healthy heart cells and injecting them into the areas of the heart that have been damaged (Smith). The cloning of organs would eliminate individuals waiting on a list for an organ transplant. Skin for burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, spinal cord cells for quadriplegics and paraplegics, hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys could be produced or regenerated. This could provide a means for suffering patients in desperate need of a transplant, which also eliminates the risk of rejection, for these new organs will be compose of their own tissue (Garg).

Human cloning though, has always been an issue of controversy, be it in terms of its ethics or religious reasoning, and there are many who will counter these ideas at any means to

see it not happen. They would argue that it is not our right to dabble in such research, but why not? In a science where the possibilities for good are endless and many lives can be saved why not? Others counterarguments may include the worry that there would be no line drawn, cloning would go too far. For example, in this war, would it be ethical to clone "soldiers"? Creating an army to win a war, using these "soldiers" as a type of disposable robot to fight and help win. This can also be called the 10,000 Hitler objection, since it is most commonly stated as fear that someone would use the technology to create an army of Hitlers. It's a fear generated from too much bad science fiction (Hume).

Cloned soldiers would still have to be carried to maturity by an army of mothers, and raised by an army of nannies and teachers. It would still take about two decades to come up with the first batch of useful soldiers or slaves. Even then, getting the clones to all believe the same thing would be impossible. Neither knowledge nor experience can be cloned, and knowledge and experience heavily influences what type of person we become. To hear some people speak, one would think that Hitler's clones would all grow up speaking German