Cloning - National Academy of Sciences and Human Cloning :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

national Academy of Sciences Human Cloning   The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) made headlines when it issued a broadside that would, if followed by Congress, grant an unrestricted license for biotech researchers to clone tender life. True, the NAS recommended that Congress inhibition reproductive cloning, that is, the apply of a cloned embryo to produce a born baby. But it in like manner urged that homo cloning for purposes of experimentation--often called therapeutic or research cloning--remain unimpeded by efficacious restrictions. Such a public policy would permit more or less unlimited piece cloning--so long as all the embryos created thereby were washed-up rather than implanted in a womans womb.   The recommendation from a known scientific organization did not appear at this particular succession by coincidence. The Senate will soon consider S. 790, legislation authored by surface-to-air missile Brownback (R-KS) that would prohibit any creation of hu man clones--whether for research purposes or for reproduction. The fireside passed a virtually identical ban in a bipartite vote last summer, and President Bush strongly supports the bill. Thus the legal future of human cloning--and the potential fortunes to be made by wide-ranging Biotech in the United States--hang in the balance in the Brownback bill.   Limiting the ban on human cloning to procedures designed to lead to the birth of a baby would accomplish attached to nothing. Figuring out how to clone human life successfully is going to be very difficult. Thus, early research would likely focus on perfecting techniques. Should this be successful, researchers would next attempt to husband the resulting embryonic clone for a week to two weeks--long enough to yield their stem cells. (The biotech company Advanced Cell Technology announced it has created human clones and maintained them to the six-cell stage(Advanced), which is not long enough for stem cells to appear.) Sho uld the stem-cell Rubicon be crossed, implantation of the embryonic clone would then be relatively easy. Hence, the next natural (dare I use the word?) step would be the compose of human clones not just for research or genetic enjoyment but for implantation, gestation, and birth. In any case, the morally serious question is whether human cloning is permissible--not when those cloned should be killed once created.   Much as an original embrocate painting can be seen only dimly beneath its patina, an docket to eventually permit unrestricted cloning for all purposes can be discerned between the lines in the NAS report.