Cloning - Reproductive tech

Cloning - Reproductive tech

An Essay by Dylan Blackler
The accident was over in seconds. The driver of the for wheeled drive that cut them off didn't even notice as Max and Mary's car spun off the highway and crashed head-on into a power post. Mary regained consciousness ten hours later in the hospital intensive care ward. She awoke only to be told that her husband had not survived the crash. Mary then quietly requested that the doctors preserve a small sample of Max's tissue. The couple had been married for five years, during which time Mary repeatedly attempted to convince Max that they should have children. Unlike Mary, who had always felt she was destined to be a parent, John was against the idea of bringing more children into an already overpopulated world. Mary persisted, but to no avail. Two months after the funeral, she met with the director of a fertility clinic specializing in cloning. With her donated egg and her husband's DNA sample, Mary was soon pregnant. She had briefly considered using a "celebrity sample," but the licensing fees were high and, really did the world need another Tom Cruise to add to the two hundred it had already? It didn't matter, she was finally having a baby. Nine months later, Mary gave birth to a baby boy who she loved deeply, in part because he was a baby boy that would eventually grow up to look just like the man she had loved so greatly and lost.
This little bit of fiction may seem absurd, but whatever emotions and reactions this scenario raises it also poses some serious ethical questions. Is it ethical to clone a human being? Is it ethical to clone a loved one who has died? Is it ethical to clone someone without his or her permission? How many times is it ethical to clone yourself? Is it only ethical the first time, tacky by the tenth time, pathological by the twentieth time and unethical the fiftieth time? If only these questions were hypothetical. From all indications it seems likely that a human being will be cloned within one to three years. I...