[lit-ideas] Cloning is Moral
- From: Eternitytime1@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 11:12:38 EDT
In llight of hearning that Brian does not believe in governmental
intervention in terms of taxes or health care, I wonder at his viewpoint in
the matter
of stem cell research and cloning.
As one who has been dealing with a Representative in my area who has tried
to keep the whole biotechnology world from progressing as well as being aware
of what some of the 'good' that can happen in that realm...I wonder what he
thinks...
Just curious,
Marlena
See this paragraph of the following (in particular):
At stake with reproductive cloning is not only whether you can conceive a
child who shares your genetic makeup, but whether you have the right to
improve
the genetic makeup of your children: to prevent them from getting genetic
diseases, to prolong their lifespan or to improve their physical appearance.
You should have such rights just as you have the right to vaccinate your
children or to fit them with braces.
_http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/c-e/epstein/2005/epstein052305.htm_
(http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/c-e/epstein/2005/epstein052305.htm)
Cloning Is Moral
May 23, 2005
by Alex Epstein
In a major breakthrough for medical progress, scientists from South Korea
have created a highly efficient method for cloning human embryos and
extracting
stem cells--a feat that makes life-saving embryonic stem-cell treatments
that much closer to reality. Instead of taking this thrilling news as an
opportunity to celebrate cloning, politicians and intellectuals are once again
calling for bans. Some seek to ban all cloning, while others oppose "only"
reproductive cloning. Although each group claims the moral high ground, both
positions are profoundly immoral. Any attempt to ban human cloning technology
should
be rejected permanently, because cloning--therapeutic and reproductive--is
morally good.
Consider first therapeutic cloning, which opponents perversely condemn as
"antilife." Senator Sam Brownback, who has sponsored a Congressional ban on all
cloning, says therapeutic cloning is "creating human life to destroy [it]."
President Bush calls it "growing human beings for spare body parts."
In fact, therapeutic cloning is a highly pro-life technology, since cloned
embryos can be used to extract medically potent embryonic stem cells. A cloned
embryo is created by inserting the nucleus of a human body cell into a
denucleated egg, which is then induced to divide until it reaches the embryo
stage. These embryos are not human beings, but microscopic bits of protoplasm
the
width of a human hair. They have the potential to grow into human beings, but
actual human beings are the ones dying for lack of this technology. The
embryonic stem cells extracted from a cloned embryo can become any other type
of
human cell. In the future, they may be used to develop pancreatic cells for
curing diabetes, cardiac muscle cells for curing heart disease, brain cells
for curing Alzheimer's--or even entire new organs for transplantation.
"There's
not an area of medicine that this technology will not potentially impact,"
says Nobel laureate Harold Varmus.
Opponents of therapeutic cloning know all this, but are unmoved. This is
because their fundamental objection is not that therapeutic cloning is
antilife,
but that it entails "playing God"--i.e., remaking nature to serve human
purposes. "[Human cloning] would be taking a major step into making man himself
simply another one of the man-made things," says Leon Kass, chairman of the
President's Council on Bioethics. "Human nature becomes merely the last part of
nature to succumb to the technological project, which turns all of nature
into raw material at human disposal." Columnist Armstrong Williams condemns
all
cloning as "human egotism, or the desire to exert our will over every aspect
of our surroundings," and cautions: "We're not God."
The one truth in the anticloning position is that cloning does represent "the
desire to exert our will over every aspect of our surroundings." But such a
desire is not immoral--it is a mark of virtue. Using technology to alter
nature is a requirement of human life. It is what brought man from the cave to
civilization. Where would we be without the men who "exerted their will" over
their surroundings and constructed the first hut, cottage, and skyscraper?
Every advance in human history is part of "the technological project," and has
made man's life longer, healthier, and happier. These advances are produced by
those who hold the premise that suffering and disease are a curse, not to be
humbly accepted as "God's will," but to be fought proudly with all the power
of man's rational mind.
The same virtue applies to reproductive cloning--which, despite the
ridiculous, horror-movie scenarios conjured up by its opponents, would simply
result
in time-separated twins just as human as anyone else. Once it becomes safe,
reproductive cloning will have legitimate uses for infertile couples and for
preventing the transmission of genetic diseases. Even more important, it is
significant as an early form of a tremendous value: genetic engineering, which
most anticloners object to because as such it entails "playing God" with the
genetic makeup of one's child. At stake with reproductive cloning is not only
whether you can conceive a child who shares your genetic makeup, but whether
you have the right to improve the genetic makeup of your children: to prevent
them from getting genetic diseases, to prolong their lifespan or to improve
their physical appearance. You should have such rights just as you have the
right to vaccinate your children or to fit them with braces.
The mentalities that denounce cloning and "playing God" have consistently
opposed technological progress, especially in medicine. They objected to
anesthesia, smallpox inoculations, contraception, heart transplants, in vitro
fertilization--on the grounds that these innovations were "unnatural" and
contrary
to God's will. To let them cripple biotechnological progress by banning
cloning would be a moral abomination.
_Alex Epstein_
(mailto:reaction@xxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Epstein%20on%20Social%20Security)
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