The Morality Of Creating Life Essay Research — страница 2

  • Просмотров 281
  • Скачиваний 5
  • Размер файла 17
    Кб

community would decide her personality. If she was raised in a family with no religious ties, there is a good chance that she may not be the Mother Teresa that society would expect. Another problem of cloning famous people, lost loved ones, or friends are the unfair expectations placed upon that person. If technology was furthered to the point where dead cells could be cloned, a parent could clone the dead child to “replace” them. The problem with this is that the cloned child would have unfair expectations to be the same as the dead child, or possibly better. Time distorts perceptions of the past. The morality issues that cloning has presented have been addressed by President Clinton. RNS, writer of the article Clinton urges ban on cloning of humans, reports that President

Clinton, at a White House ceremony where he accepted the report of the National Bioethics Commission, stated, “What the legislation will do is to reaffirm our most cherished beliefs about the miracle of human life and the God-given individuality each person possesses” (583). Clinton is responding to the legislation that would ban human cloning but allow continued research. This statement was in reply to Scottish researchers who had successfully cloned a sheep, making the cloning of a human more imminent. Backers of President Clinton included Gracie Hsu, an analyst with the Family Research Council. She opposed the idea to allow cloning research to continue in order to possibly aid the sick. She stated that the panel’s recommendation to allow human embryo research “is

premised on the false assumption that human beings less that 14 days old are not completely human, thereby condoning the destruction of countless numbers of embryonic children for the sake of ‘research’” (584). This type of research is very similar to abortion. President Clinton is not the only person to oppose cloning. The Catholic Church and other religions have decided that cloning is immoral. These religions extend beyond the Catholic Realm. Many Protestants, including Gilbert Meilaender, Board of Directors Chair of Christian Ethics, and Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University, author of Religious, Philosophical, and Ethical Perspectives on Cloning: Cloning in Protestant Perspective, believe that cloning is immoral because it takes away sexual reproduction.

Meilaender believes that sexual reproduction is good for the relationship of the man and the women, an also the relationship between the parents and child. He noted, “What Protestants found in the Bible was a normative view: namely, that the sexual differentiation is ordered toward the creation of offspring, and that children should be conceived within the marital union” (2). Meilaender also believed that when a child is cloned that the child is then constructed out of human will instead of God’s will. Catholics are also against cloning. Cardinal Bernard F. Law articulates the Catholic view on cloning in an article by Kevin Krajnak. In his article, Cardinal Urges Congress to Ban Human Cloning, Krajnak reports the Pope as stating that Congress “?should enact a meaningful

ban on human cloning without further delay.” The article also tells of the Cardinal sending each member of congress an information packet explaining how the arguments against a federal ban on human cloning are misleading. There are many supporters of cloning. These supporters believe that cloning is moral for a variety of reasons. Meilaender attempts to tackle some of these ideas in his writings. Many religious supporters turn to Scripture to support their belief. They note that Adam and Eve were created, and that Jesus was “begotton, not made in one being with the father” (Nicene Creed.) This argument is easily combated with the fact that all was created by God, not just Adam and Eve. God, in his eternal wisdom, created everything to perfection. Mortals do not have that

power. Meilaender combats the notion that Jesus being “begotton not made” relates to cloning. He states, “What the language of the Nicene Creed wanted to say was that the Son is God just as the Father is God” (4). If it had been said that God made Jesus it would have implied an inferiority that is not true. There are many supporters of cloning. Well Hello, Dolly is an article that supports cloning. Author Kenneth Paul Wesche, where he acts as Dr. Frankenstein, Jr., explains his reasons. In this article, Wesche raises the argument of God creating Adam and Eve in a slightly different light. It is noted that Adam and Eve were no less human than Cain and Abel (or anyone else) because of the manner in which they were created. The problem that this argument fails to realize is