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Cloning and Stem Cell Research: A Summary of the Current Ethical Dilemma

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Cloning and Stem Cell Research: A Summary of the Current Ethical Dilemma
Essay based on the topic: “On the issue of cloning, an early pioneer of cloning research, Dr. James D. Watson, believed that over time society would see that the good would outweight the bad”.
Articles read for supporting the matter: “Animals Cloned” by Tim Reid, and “Cloning and Stemm Cell Research: A summary of the Current Ethical Dilemmas”, by Neil Thompson.

The researches on cloning are old but it reached some heated debates in the lasts decades. This matter became more famous in media after the cloned sheep Dolly, in 1997. Since that, a lot of new researches occurred, and many critics appeared as well. It’s a technology innovation not accepted for many people yet, but it can largely bring good results for the future.
The cloning researches produce great enthusiasm in many scientists and also common people for the medical possibilities of the future. It represents possible cures for Parkinson’s disease, Diabetes and Organs replacement. However, it is a complex issue, which has many ethical questions unanswered yet. For easier understanding of the question, it’s important to know that there are two kinds of cloning: the Reproductive and the Therapeutic.
The reproductive cloning means to reproduce a living copy of the cloned thing. It’s what happened to Dolly and that’s what happening with some other animals. Some baboons, pigs and monkeys are being tested in medical researches for purposes from which humans can benefit. Some people fear that developing this technique can enable a future “manufacture of man”. However, all the biotechnological community as the public at large are firmly against the use of this technique in relation to humans.
The Therapeutic cloning doesn’t involve a production of an entire living entity, just of cloned embryos or cloned adult stem cells for medical research. The purpose of this technique focuses only in the valuable stem cells that the embryo contains, and then, the embryo is destroyed. Many people argue for this issue

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