Sunday, July 31, 2016

Why Cloning Is Immoral

From guest blogger, Ming,

In Allhoff’s article, he argues that it is morally wrong to clone because of some biological consequences that telomerase shortens from duplication. He also mentions cloning is wrong according to principle Q that the number of people survive is the same either decision you make, but it is morally wrong if you choose the worst one if one group of people would live shorter.

I agree that cloning is morally wrong, but not because of principle Q. First of all, I think that reproduction of human is different from reproduction of plants, because generally human reproduction requires combination of sperm and egg. However, cloning just requires DNA from a cell from scalp tissue of one person and I don’t think cloning follows natural law because it simply extract some DNA and produce a very similar “human-alike” product.

Also, I think cloning is different from having babies without genetic testing for diseases. Some people will have pre-marital medical exam before having babies, but it is not for sure that the genetic disorder will pass to next generation. Thus, it is hard for parents to abort babies or change other mates. However, we are hundred percent sure that cloning would shorten animals’ lifetime. It is immoral to make worst choice if you have other choice available.

2 comments:

PineappleNan said...

Hey Ming,
I think you made a distinction between the plants and human beings which is necessary. However, I'm a little confused the nature law you mentioned because I think sometimes it is nothing wrong for us to break the nature law for the most benefits right? There are a lot of artificial things are made by human beings and we are benefiting from them. So if we can benefit from cloning, we can try this new technology for those people who want a sexual reproduction.

Unknown said...

Ming, I think that you bring up some interesting thoughts on the subject of cloning. However, I do think that there is some more digging to do on your part to get to the deeper moral principles at work within the cloning debate. First, you talk about human reproduction being different than plant reproduction because there is a combination of genetic material. But plants can be pollinated by other plants and create hybrid plants (bees do this all the time) so is there really such a vast difference between human and plant reproduction? Also, I'm confused as to how this even plays into the cloning debate. Next, if you think cloning is wrong because it doesn't follow the natural way reproduction happens, do you also think "test tube" babies are immoral because of the same principle? This has been going on for many years now so does that make every child born by this method a being spawned from immoral behavior? Lastly, if a method for cloning was developed where telomer shortening didn't occur, would it still be morally impermissible to clone? If cloning technology ever became accessible to everyday consumers we would be able to know the DNA sequence of the possible clone and test for possible hereditary diseases (and if someone has one, maybe not allow them to clone?). What do you think? Thanks.