CLONING Cloning is the process of creating a genetic duplicate of an individual. Since the February 1997 announcement of the birth of Dolly, a sheep cloned by Ian Wilmut, cloning research has increased considerably. Cloning humans has recently become much more of a possibility in society than it was years ago. Scientists are on the edge of a huge breakthrough in the field of human cloning, and society must ask itself whether or not it should be allowed. Many arguments can be made for and against human cloning, but since it is corrupt and would take away individuality and disrupt social values, the practice of cloning humans is one that government should ban and society should not accept. Defenders of human cloning may argue that it is just a logical and an inevitable advance in science research and technology. It is, however, too risky for human subjects. At the present time, the general agreement of the public is against human cloning. Within a few years' time, however, the medical possibilities of human cloning may be attractive enough to change public opinion. Research on human cloning would involve huge risks for the initial clones, because any experiments in human cloning would eventually have to be carried out on human beings. Human cloning is unethical because the risks of this practice greatly outweigh the benefits. The technique that produced Dolly the sheep was successful in only 1 of 277 attempts. If this technique were attempted in humans, it would risk miscarriages in the mother and develop mental problems in the child. Standard medical practice would never allow the use of any drug or device with such little study and without much additional animal research. The actual risks of physical harm to the cloned child cannot be certain without conducting experiments on human beings. This in itself is unethical because no one knows what will happen and the child is in danger.

Human cloning would violate a person's individuality and take away a child's identity. Cloned children would see themselves not as a person, but as an object that their parents could abandon because of imperfection. A family is no longer a genuine family. Children should be valued for who they are, not according to how closely thy meet their parents' expectations. If a child were cloned, his life would already have been lived by another human being. Suppose a boy is cloned from a grandparent. The cloned child knows too much about himself because another person in the world is exactly like him. It is unfair for the earlier twin to determine the child's life in this way. Imagine a world in which cloning is permitted and practised. If people are able to pick and choose the human traits that they find desirable, it could very possibly lead to feelings of superiority that are often linked with racism. This "genetic selection" was practised by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party and the world saw the horrible effects of his desire to improve nature. Human cloning poses a huge risk to society and nature. It is unethical and unacceptable, inappropriate and intolerable. Society should not reduce itself to cloning of humans for its own benefit. Cloning would produce many more problems than improvements. The course of life should be left up to nature, the way it has been since the beginning of time.