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Example research essay topic: Bioethics Advisory Commission Engl J Med - 2,301 words

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against human cloning. Currently the scientists have the skills and resources to create human clones. They are operating outside any structures of public or scientific accountability. In a growing number of countries, their efforts toulon human children would be felonies punishable by imprisonment. It is considered that Human cloning is a crime against human dignity and humanity. It is believed to be a play with nature and its laws as well as a step toward the commodification and brutalization of human life.

In the following essay I will comment on the arguments against human cloning as well as briefly comment on the history of cloning and the fore-settings that led to the development of ability to grow human clones. Historic Background. Cloning is not new. Experiments with frogs and toads date back to the 1970 s. And experiments involving plants and animal embryos have been performed for years. But experiments involving human beings have never been tried or thought possible, until "Dolly. " Her birth shocked the scientific community and has spurred discussion about the possibility of human clones.

Dr. Lee Silver, a molecular biologist at Princeton University, is optimistic that "human cloning will occur, " and that "it might take five years, ten years at the outermost" (Kolata, 120) Lee notes that at this time, "no ethical doctor would do human cloning." Although this view is predominant among many scientists, some argue that a safe technology could be developed in the future. This has led to discussion about whether human cloning should even be legally possible. When the scientists cloned the cloning technique somatic cell nuclear transfer was used.

It is a fully grown mammal, with her DNA coming from a single cell taken from her mother egg, which is fused with the mammary cell. The fused cell then develops into an embryo, which is implanted in a "surrogate" sheep. The embryo grows into a lamb, which is genetically identical to the donor sheep (Butler, 12). Though has been touted as a success, this cloning procedure is not perfect. It took more than 277 attempts before "Dolly" was created as a health viable lamb. Human cloning is far more complicated, with greater risks and potentials for error.

As a result, scientists fear that applying this technique to humans might lead to malformations or diseases in the human clone (Kolata, 122). Doubts intensified in the scientific community when the Scottish scientist Ian Wilmut, credited with the successful cloning of "Dolly", admitted that he may have made a procedural mistake. Wilmut said, "there is a remote possibility that the cell came from a fetus rather than from an adult. " This is an important detail since scientist have been able to clone mammals from fetus cells and may explain why other scientists have not been able to duplicate Wilmut's procedure (Robertson, 62). Cloning Dolly and how to clone humans. The picture in the addendum section shows how a human would be cloned using the "Dolly" method.

Cells can also be taken from a male. True human cloning would require taking a somatic cell, as opposed to a reproductive cell such as an egg or sperm cell, from a person and removing its nucleus. The DNA of the somatic cell is transferred to an enucleated egg cell. But this is not currently possible because the somatic cells are specialized and there are many genes that have been "turned off" that we do not know how to turn back "on" (Kolata, 123). A "human clone" is a time-delayed identical twin of another person.

A clone is not an exact replica of the original, but just a much younger identical twin. As with identical twins, the clone and the original person will have different fingerprints. Speaking about positives of cloning I would like to note that there is only one. Human cloning research would enable doctors to determine the cause of spontaneous abortions, give oncologists an understanding of the rapid cell growth of cancer, allow the use of stem cells to regenerate nerve tissues, and advance work on aging, genetics, and medicines (Butler, 13). Speaking about the ways against human cloning I would like to note the following: 1. Health risks from mutation of genes - an abnormal baby would be a nightmare come true to her parents.

The technique is extremely risky right now. A particular worry is the possibility that the genetic material used from the adult will continue to age so that the genes in a newborn baby clone could be - say - 30 years old or more on the day of birth. Many attempts at animal cloning produced disfigured monsters with severe abnormalities (Knox, 52). So that would mean creating cloned embryos, implanting them and destroying (presumably) those that look imperfect as they grow in the womb.

However some abnormalities may not appear till after birth. A cloned cow recently died several weeks after birth with a huge abnormality of blood cell production. Dolly the Sheep died prematurely of severe lung disease in February 2003, and also suffered from arthritis at an unexpectedly early age - probably linked to the cloning process (Kolata, 125). Even if a few cloned babies are born apparently normal we will have to wait up to 20 years to be sure they are not going to have problems later -for example growing old too fast. Every time a clone is made it is like throwing the dice and even a string of "healthy" clones being born would not change the likelihood that many clones born in future may have severe medical problems. And of course, that's just the ones born.

What about all the disfigured and highly abnormal clones that either spontaneously aborted or were destroyed / terminated by scientists worried about the horrors they might be creating (Robertson, 64). 2. Emotional risks - a child grows up possibly knowing her mother is her sister, her grandmother is her mother. Her father is her brother-in-law. Every time her mother looks at her she is seeing herself growing up. Unbearable emotional pressures on a teenager trying to establish his or her identity. What happens to a marriage when the "father" sees his wife's clone grow up into the exact replica (by appearance) of the beautiful 18 year old he fell in love with 35 years ago?

A sexual relationship would of course be with his wife's twin, no incest involved technically (Butler, 14). Or maybe the child knows it is the twin of a dead brother or sister. What kind of pressures will he or she feel, knowing they were made as a direct replacement for another? It is a human experiment doomed to failure because the child will not be identical in every way, despite the hopes of the parents (Rorvik, 45). One huge reason will be that the child will be brought up in a highly abnormal household: one where grief has been diverted into making a clone instead of adjusting to loss. The family environment will be totally different than that the other twin experienced.

That itself will place great pressures on the emotional development of the child. You will not find a child psychiatrist in the world who could possibly say that there will not be very significant emotional risk to the cloned child as a result of these pressures. 3. Risk of abuse of the technology - what would Hitler have done with cloning technology if available in the 1940 s? There are powerful leaders in every generation who will seek to abuse this technology for their own purposes.

Going ahead with cloning technology makes this far more likely. You cannot have so-called therapeutic cloning without reproductive cloning because the technique to make cloned babies is the same as to make a cloned embryo to try to make replacement tissues (Robertson, 66). And at the speed at which biotech is accelerating there will soon be other ways to get such cells - adult stem cell technology. It is rather crude to create a complete embryonic identical twin embryo just to get hold of stem cells to make - say - nervous tissue. Much better to take cells from the adult and trigger them directly to regress to a more primitive form without the ethical issues raised by inserting a full adult set of genes into an unfertilized egg. 4.

People may be cloned surreptitiously, against their will. It is true that blood taken for medical purposes or hair left at the barbershop could be stolen. Laws may be necessary to prevent this by requiring the consent of any person who is cloned (or of the parents, if the individual is a child). In the United States, civil lawsuits (for monetary damages) might be a deterrent (Cross, 10). 5. Cloning is unsafe.

Cloning will produce damaged children, because the cells of an adult human have been exposed to environmental toxins for many years and have developed new mutations (Chomsky, 31). Children may age and die rapidly because the chromosomes in an adult have shortened telomeres (end points of a chromosome that shorten with each cell division, until the cell is no longer able to divide), a result of cellular aging. 6. Cloning could reduce human diversity, especially if carried out on a large scale. Most people want to have children who are the biological offspring of both or at least one parent, not the clone of some famous individual. Mass cloning of famous or wealthy individuals who want to populate the earth could still be prevented by regulations.

Totalitarian societies could produce clones on mass scale (Jonas, 78) In conclusion I would like to say that Mr. Wilmut, the scientist credited with "Dolly, " calls the cloning of humans "appalling, " because it would result in a high number of miscarriages and deaths among newborns. A clone could also change family dynamics in profound and unpredictable ways. The National Bioethics Advisory Commission: "While using animals to understand the biological processes that produced "Dolly" holds great promise for future medical advances, there is no current scientific justification for attempting to produce a human child at this time with this technique" (Silver, 46). Concern has been raised that a black market for embryos would arise. Infertile couples could buy a cloned embryo that was stolen or was to be discarded in order to have a child (Kolata, 127).

Scientists are also concerned about the medical risks and uncertainty associated with human cloning. One fear is that if a baby is cloned, its chromosomes could match the age of the donor -- meaning that a " 5 -year old would look like a 10 -year old and a 10 -year would look like a 20 -year old, with potential for heart disease and cancer to develop." All this creates contra-human cloning views rather than the views supporting human cloning. References: U. S. Senate. 144 Cong. Rec.

S 561 -S 580, S 607 -S 608 (1998). S. 1611 (Feinstein Kennedy Prohibition on Cloning of Human Beings Act of 1998). Cloning human beings: report and recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, Md. : National Bioethics Advisory Commission, June 1997. Annas GJ, Elias S. The politics of transplantation of human fetal tissue.

N Engl J Med 1989; 320: 1079 - 1082. [Medline] Annas GJ, Caplan A, Elias S. The politics of human embryo research -- avoiding ethical gridlock. N Engl J Med 1996; 334: 1329 - 1332. [Full Text] Wilmut I, Schnieke AE, Mc Whir J, Kind AJ, Campbell KH. Viable offspring derived from fetal and adult mammalian cells. Nature 1997; 385: 810 - 813. [Medline] Butler D. Dolly researcher plans further experiments after challenges.

Nature 1998; 391: 825 - 826. Lederberg J. Experimental genetics and human evolution. Am Nat 1966; 100: 519 - 531.

Watson JD. Moving toward the clonal man. Atlantic Monthly. May 1971: 50 - 3.

Rorvik DM. In his image: the cloning of a man. Philadelphia: J. B.

Lippincott, 1978. Development in cell biology and genetics, cloning. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the U. S. House of Representatives, 95 th Congress, 2 d Session, May 31, 1978.

Chomsky N. Language and problems of knowledge: the Managua lectures. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 1988. Montalbano W. Cloned sheep is star, but not sole project, at institute. Los Angeles Times.

February 25, 1997: A 7. Karen R. Carbon copy: meet the first human clone. Wired. March 1998: 146 - 50. Lewontin RC.

Confusion over cloning. New York Review of Books. October 23, 1997: 20 - 3. Robertson JA. Children of choice: freedom and the new reproductive technologies.

Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1994: 169. Jonas H. Philosophical essays: From ancient creed to technological man. Englewood Cliffs, N. J. : Prentice-Hall, 1974: 162 - 3.

Annas GJ. Some choice: law, medicine and the market. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998: 14 - 5. Annas GJ.

Regulatory models for human embryo cloning: the free market, professional guidelines, and government restrictions. Kennedy Inst Ethics J 1994; 4: 235 - 249. [Medline] Hearings before the U. S. Senate Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety, 105 th Congress, 1 st Session, March 12, 1997. (Or see: web) Cross FB.

Paradoxical perils of the precautionary principle. Washington Lee Law Rev 1996; 53: 851 - 925. Kolata GB. Clone: the road to Dolly, and the path ahead. New York: W.

Morrow, 1998. Silver LM. Remaking Eden: cloning and beyond in a brave new world. New York: Avon Books, 1997.

Knox RA. A Chicagoan plans to offer cloning of humans. Boston Globe. January 7, 1998: A 3. Kassirer JP, Rosenthal NA.

Should human cloning research be off limits? N Engl J Med 1998; 338: 905 - 906. [Full Text] Addendum: Pictorial depiction of the human cloning process.


Free research essays on topics related to: engl j med, bioethics advisory commission, u s senate, national bioethics advisory, human cloning research

Research essay sample on Bioethics Advisory Commission Engl J Med

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