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 broadsheet that would, if followed by Congress, grant an open-ended license for biotech researchers to clone human life. True, the NAS recommended that Congress ban reproductive cloning, that is, the use of a cloned embryo to produce a born(p) baby. But it also urged that human cloning for purposes of experimentation--often called therapeutic or research cloning--remain unimpeded by legal restrictions. Such a public policy would grant virtually unlimited human cloning--so long as all the embryos created thereby were destroyed rather than implanted in a womans womb.   The recommendation from a long-familiar scientific organization did not appear at this particular time by coincidence. The Senate will soon consider S. 790, legislation authored by Sam Brownback (R-KS) that would require any creation of human clones--whether for research purposes or for reprod uction. The House passed a virtually identical ban in a bipartisan vote digest summer, and President Bush strongly supports the bill. Thus the legal future of human cloning--and the potential fortunes to be made by Big 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 close to nothing. reckon 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 adjacent attempt to maintain the resulting embryonic clone for a week to two weeks--long enough to harvest their stem cells. (The biotech company Advanced Cell Technology announce it has created human clones and maintained them to the six-cell stage(Advanced), which is not long enough for stem cells to appear.) Should the stem-cell Rubicon be crossed, implantation of the embryo nic clone would then be relatively easy. Hence, the next natural (dare I use the word?) step would be the manufacture of human clones not just for research or genetic manipulation still 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 oil painting potbelly be seen only dimly beneath its patina, an agenda to eventually permit unrestricted cloning for all purposes can be discerned between the lines in the NAS report.