, Research Paper
Eugenics. The word strikes fear in the hearts of many. Visions of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, along with memories of Nazi experimentation and the Lynchburg sterilization colonies in the United States, cause many to dismiss the idea of cloning immediately. However, in reality, cloning has nothing to do with eugenics or genetic engineering. Cloning is the duplication of genetic material without any alteration. Germ line therapy, however, involves changing the material for a specific purpose. It does not make sense to combine the two processes for the sake of argument. What affect could cloning have on disease research? Cloning could be extremely valuable in studying the process of human development and disease influences this system. Scientists are already cloning genes to produce and test new drug products. Cloning animals (such as mice) could be used to produce “knock-out” specimens for testing. Not to say that we should produce knock-out humans, but isn’t there a possibility that human cloning could actually help us find cures to a number of diseases? Could cloning be used to produce transplant organs or “brain-dead” clones for organ harvesting? Some claim that cloning would enable us to produce transplantable organs that would not be rejected by the recipient’s body, since they would be produced from his own genetic material. This may be possible. However, ther
Bibliography
– Orwell, Looking Back on the Spanish War