To Clone or Not to Clone Issue 5 Issue 5 Home Page

Stop Cloning People! Woradej Rinsurongkawong from Thailand explains three reasons why he opposes cloning. Photo: Sandy Peters Even though cloning may have a lot of benefits for humans, I think we should stop cloning because we do not understand it and can not control all of its effects.   There are three reasons why I don't think that we are ready for cloning. First, we don't know exactly what the consequences of cloning would be. For example, if scientists cloned a man, they might know what he would look like, but they wouldn't know his dominant traits. I want you to imagine what would happen if scientists cloned another Hitler or others like him. Do you really think we would survive, if this became a reality? Secondly, cloning raises many ethical questions. Look back at the cloned man I presented and ask yourself these questions: "Do you really think that he would be a man?" "Who would be responsible for him?" "Do you think he should have the same rights as we have?" I don't think that we can answer these questions now. Lastly, we don't know exactly what the meaning of life is. In my opinion, creating life is the duty of nature, and we must not interfere with that task because we can not understand the extremely sophisticated relationships among lives that are defined by nature. Usually these relationships are extremely complex. Sometimes, they seem to be untouchable, and absolutely, they cannot be changed. From my point of view, we have to look at the natural environment around us. We will see that an ecosystem is composed of a lot of kinds of lives, and each life has its own function within the system. If we interfere with that, I think it could lead to our extinction. I cannot answer all of these questions for others, but I have my own answers, and personally, I totally disagree with cloning. Even though cloning may have a lot of benefits for humans, I think we should stop cloning because we do not understand it and can not control all of its effects. Maybe in the future, we will be ready to do it, but that time has not arrived.    More on cloning: Human Cloning is Beyond Us | Why Not Clone People? Interviews: How would you like to be cloned? Return to: To Clone or Not to Clone | Issue 5 | Home Page   TOPICS Online Magazine - ©1997-2007 - Sandy and Thomas Peters - topics.mag@gmail.com