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Cloning: Great Advancement or Crime against Humanity

In the past few years, human cloning has gone from a laboratory fantasy to a global debate. There are many arguments supporting both negative and positive effects of human cloning. According to BBC News religious leaders have said that Cloning is unethical and even a crime against God including The Catholic Pope John Paul II has condemned the Cloning research (Willey). Will human cloning be a great step for man, or will it lead to moral abyss? This question is asked all the time. With great research one would realize that with the implementation of human cloning, there would be a huge medical and non-medical advancement. Humanity could cure multitude of diseases and ailments, people with single and infertile parents could have children, and certain species could be saved from extinction. In contrast to all the positives of human cloning, there are many religious leaders, human rights activist and the misinformed masses that are against the advancement of cloning.

The first major point in favor of human cloning is that cancer patients would be able to have bone marrow transplants together with other organ transplants. The treatment for leukemia could be revolutionized. According to a fact sheet made by the Human Genome Project one of the more successful treatments for leukemia involves the transfer of the patient's bone marrow through chemotherapy and the transplantation of healthy marrow cells. With marrow cells that are perfect genetic matches for a leukemia patient could be created from that person with one's own cell through the use of human cloning (Cloning Fact Sheet). Organ transplants and donations are not so efficient at this point in time. It does help, but more often it does not. This is because there are a lot of factors that are taken into account when an organ is replaced with a donated one. If someone dies, and has signed a paper allowing for his or her organs to be removed from his or her corpse and donated to people in need, and the organs proves to be healthy and working, then our donation policies prove effective. Cloning could also lead to a better treatment for heart attacks. According to the Human Cloning Foundation, doctors will be able to treat heart attack victims by cloning their healthy heart cells and injecting them into the areas of the heart that have been damaged (HumanCloning.Org). Heart disease is the number one killer in the United States and several other industrialized countries. If heart disease can be cured, then human life expectancy will increase.

In addition to better treatments for heart attacks, cloning may be able to ensure that one no longer suffers because of defective genes that cause cancer. Although scientist, do not know exactly how cells differentiate into specific kinds of tissues, nor understand why cancerous cells lose their differentiation, cloning, at last, could answer how to switch cells on and off, thus curing cancer.

Cloning would also provide a great scientific breakthrough for both men and women. In Nussbaum and Sunsteins book the Clones and Clones: Facts and Fantasies about Human Cloning single women would be able to clone children of their choices without men or the fear of sexually transmitted diseases. Infertile and sterile couples would be able to have children, which could actually look like them. Cloning has the power to cure infertility (134). The current options for infertile couples are insufficient,