Cloning

Ladies and gentlemen, we have gathered here today to talk about cloning. My name is
Philip Stevens and I am a concerned citizen of this country, just like all of you. In the past few
months, there have been nation-wide talks about the benefits of cloning: it can help rejuvenate,
reverse heart attacks, infertility, plastic, reconstructive and cosmetic surgery, and take away
defective genes and many other important benefits. And all you have to do is allow scientists to
remove cells from your body and create new ones. But I can see that no one has had the courage
so far to talk about the problems that cloning will cause us, as individuals and as a society. So
this is what I am going to try and do today.
The first argument against human cloning is straightforward and widely shared. It is
dangerous. The report of the one successfully cloned sheep in Scotland was preceded by 276
failures. Cloned human embryos have already been killed in research laboratories. In addition,
genetic screening (depistare genetic) will be used with cloned human embryos and any embryo
that does not pass will be killed.
And cloning assaults the very dignity of human procreation. Human procreation involves
a man and a woman coming together as one, open to new life the fruit of their union. And
cloning leaves no trace of the dignity of human procreation, as it is completely artificial
reproductive technology. Moreover, cloning will destroy the unity of marriage and parenthood.
Divorce, extramarital sex, contraception and in vitro fertilization all disrupt the unity of marriage
and parenthood. Cloning is yet another blow to the unity which should exist in Christian
marriage.
And I havent heard anyone talking about the emotional risks surrounding cloning. A
child grows up 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 are put on a teenager trying to establish his or her identity. 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?
In the case of cloning there is also an imminent risk of abuse of technology. What would
Hitler have done with cloning technology if available in the 1940s? There are powerful leaders in
every generation who will seek to abuse this technology for their own purposes. And 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. So the
danger will be there.
So fellow inhabitants of this planet, tell me! Is cloning worth taking all this risks? I leave
you to answer that question. Thank you!