What would make a good introduction?
Although many scientists have pointed out that the actual substantial benefits of animal cloning lie mostly in the agricultural realm, this has been largely ignored by the media and the general public. The impending possibility of research into human cloning has cast a shadow over the solutions that cloning can offer to problems such as Third World famines and the conservation of biodiversity that were once considered as pressing. Why is this so?
It is simply because human cloning has overwhelming implications. Its mere possibility raises fundamental questions such as “What makes one human?” and “What is the right to be free?” that have been hotly debated by philosophers since the dawn of time. What is more important is that members of the public who would rather ignore these questions now find a need to answer them.
Continued research into cloning has the most implications in research into human cloning. Even before human cloning is possible, a question arises in the process of starting research in that area, that of experiments on humans. Society’s belief that human life is sacrosanct and that no one has a right to toy with another’s life is evidenced by public horror at tales of medical experiments on unsuspecting participants.
Research into cloning will inevitably meet with failures and setbacks, very likely involving the loss of human life in the form of cells and embryos. Once again we are faced with a question already hotly debated in the issue of abortion – at what point does a foetus become human? The loss of life through this research is a major implication that is posed to halt any research in this direction. But then, the possible benefits of such research forces us to consider what the value is of human life. Should we continue with such research if it were to save lives in the future?
Another important implication and possibly the most frightening while also welcomed, is that cloning may reveal what makes us human. Do we truly have an immaterial “self” that we so often say is in the mind? Cloning can offer the answer to these questions simply by altering the cloning process and observing when a human is created without self-identity. While this is a question that awakens an insatiable curiosity, the prospect itself is chilling in the extreme.
Before we can even contemplate this question fairly we need to see what actual human cloning might result in. Obviously, we would be able to obtain genetically identical individuals. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities. For once, the debate over how the environment affects human behaviour can be resolved. The use of twins in studies of how different environments affect thought and behaviour is not novel, but with human cloning, such studies could be carried out over a larger scale.
How would you frame the conclusion?
What enhancements are needed for the above essay?
