Human cloning is a rather controversial subject that has passionate people on both sides of the debate. It’s a technology that some feel has been artificially inhibited because there are religious concerns that make the science ethically non-viable. On the other hand, human cloning could also provide a medical answer to some of our most difficult diseases, birth defects, and genetic disorders that current have no treatments. By examining this list of pros and cons, everyone can decide on their own as to which side of the debate they support.
What Are the Pros of Human Cloning?
Human cloning has the potential to help society in a number of key areas. From improving overall health care to the elimination of problematic diseases, there are some distinct advantages that the science of human cloning can provide.
- It could eliminate all infertility issues.
- It may provide individuals with the chance to recover faster from traumatic injuries.
- Genes that are defective could be eliminated, which may eliminate the genetic diseases that defective genes may cause.
- Severe birth defects could be potentially fixed before a child is born so they can live a long, fulfilling life.
- Specific disease treatment could be developed to help fight off difficult viruses, like HIV or HPV.
- It may provide humans with the ability to prolong life as young cells could be cloned to reduce the effects of aging.
- Organs could be cloned from current body tissues so that someone would not need to wait for a donor organ from a massive waiting list.
What Are the Cons of Human Cloning?
The science of human cloning is not well known as of right now. Whether it has been naturally or artificially reduced is not the point. The fact is that we don’t know everything we could know about this science. Here are some other cons to consider.
- Human cloning may cause people to age faster because entropy may be inputted into the life of a cell being cloned.
- It would reduce the sense of individuality that is available in modern society now because children would become exact duplicates of a parent.
- The science may make humans more of a commodity, which would place less value on each human life.
- It could create new divisions in society where people who are perfectly cloned would be compared to people who were imperfectly cloned or children who were born naturally.
- There is no guarantee of success that a cloned human organ would be accepted by a body, even if it is from a personal cell, because the immune system may reject the duplication.
- Human cloning may create new diseases that don’t currently exist.
- It could prevent the natural grieving process that humans have because a person tragically lost could just be cloned once again.
- The costs are expensive, especially considering that in animal testing, success rates can be as low as 1%.
There are certainly some issues that need to be worked out with the science of human cloning before it becomes part of the regular routine. By examining the pros and cons of this technology, we can all come together to find some middle ground.
Crystal Lombardo is a contributing editor for Vision Launch. Crystal is a seasoned writer and researcher with over 10 years of experience. She has been an editor of three popular blogs that each have had over 500,000 monthly readers.
