Pte Essay on “Discuss the merits and demerits of cloning. What is your opinion?”

Discuss the merits and demerits of cloning. What is your opinion?

Cloning, the technique of producing a genetic twin of a human being, has been in the air for the last two decades. This practice has raised a lot of controversy in the society and is still in ethical judgment.

Those who are in favor of cloning point out that there are many useful purposes of this practice. Firstly, they claim that it can be used for therapeutic purposes. To illustrate, the cells from the body of a person be used to develop body cells like liver cell, heart muscle and brain cell. Thus, organ transplantation becomes much safer because the new organ is genetically identical to the old one. Hence there is no possibility of the new organ being rejected by the body because of incompatibility. Also, diseases like blood cancer and hepatitis can be treated effectively. Yet another advantage is that it provides a safer way for infertile couples to have their offspring of their own genetic make up.

However, legions of allegations are leveled against cloning by those who do not favor it. The very first assertion is that cloning will cause the demise of socially accepted values like marriage, family and parenthood. They go on to maintain that in a society where heredity and tradition are considered important, the clones will be treated like animals or objects; not like human beings. This will create a sense of diminished individuality in the cloned individuals.

In total, it seems that there is a potential threat of misuse of this technique and its application can give rise to a large number of thorny questions regarding ethics and moral values. Hence, it can be said that plants and animals can be cloned for the benefit of humanity and the cloning of human embryo should be banned.