As society and science and technology develop, ethical judgment becomes increasingly important, and we discuss whether human cloning technology can bring benefits to humanity, or whether it will become the center of controversy due to ethical issues and threats to human dignity.
As societies have developed and science and technology have advanced, people have naturally made ethical advances. These changes are not just the result of technological advances, but also the result of deep reflection on human dignity and the value of life. Even now, the importance of human dignity and the value of life is the most important consideration in the implementation of various scientific and technological research. These ethical considerations are not just an ideal, but an essential criterion for scientific research and experimentation. In the past, ethical issues were often overlooked in favor of scientific progress, but today people recognize that ethics and science are not at odds with each other, but rather complementary.
For example, in research involving human life, ethical aspects were often neglected in the past, whereas today, research may not even be possible without strict adherence to ethical standards. This means that science and technology are not just advancing, but how well they can protect human dignity in the process has become more important. This has led to a deepening debate about whether to proceed with research based on the benefits of scientific and technological advances or to focus on ethical considerations. In other words, the conflict between scientific and ethical judgment is inevitable.
One such example is cloning research. When you think of cloning, the first thing that usually comes to mind is Dolly the sheep. In July 1996, the world’s first cloned animal, Dolly, shocked the scientific community when she was successfully cloned after numerous attempts. The success of this research was met with a lot of excitement, but also a fear that human cloning was not far from perfection. When the word “human” is added to the word “cloning” to create a genetically identical individual, the first thing that comes to mind is bioethical objections. This is because there are many concerns about the risk of violating human dignity. Does research on human cloning technology really do more harm than good? Shouldn’t human cloning research be attempted?
How can human cloning research be used? What are the benefits and what advances could it bring to humanity? First of all, human cloning research is not limited to reproductive cloning, which is the production of a complete copy of an individual. There is also therapeutic cloning, which is the cloning of embryos to obtain embryonic stem cells. These studies are positive because they can provide real benefits, such as curing diseases.
From the time a sperm meets an egg and fertilizes it, until eight weeks after the fertilized egg implants in the uterus, the embryo is called an embryo. A clump of cells from a fertilized egg that is four to five days old is removed to create conditions where it can continue to divide. Once a sufficient number of embryos have been cloned, they can then be induced to differentiate into muscle or nerve cells, or by somatic cell nuclear replacement using the patient’s own cells, organs cultured using these principles can be used to treat incurable diseases and prolong human life. This could lead to new medical advances that could save people suffering from currently incurable diseases, for example.
However, we shouldn’t overlook the ethical issues that these technological advances will bring. Will babies born from human cloning technology be created rather than born? Do babies born from human cloning technology cease to exist as autonomous moral agents and should be considered instrumentalized, produced for the purposes of others? These questions force us to consider where we draw the ethical line in the sand for human reproductive technologies.
First, we shouldn’t be too concerned about the first question, as there are plenty of couples who need assisted reproductive technologies today. Being a cloned entity does not mean that we should view them differently from non-cloned beings. I don’t think it’s right to perceive cloned beings as only existing to fulfill our needs. If we clone humans, do we risk losing our individuality, and will our uniqueness be threatened? Consider the case of identical twins: they have the same genetic information as cloned individuals. Does this mean that we can ignore their individuality and uniqueness? I think this is where environmental influences come into play. Just as twins raised in different environments may look the same, but have completely different personalities and minds.
Of course, we should recognize the existence of cloned objects as objects to be used as a means to an end, and cloning research conducted for profit should be prohibited. If legal and social rules are established to sanction the abuse of cloning technology, I believe that human cloning technology can be successful and do more good than harm. Our society has already established various ethical standards and legal sanctions for the advancement of science and technology. For example, there are legal sanctions and ethical debates around artificial intelligence and gene editing technologies. Similarly, the boundaries of human cloning technology could be clarified through social consensus.
Let’s look back at our human history. The increase in new empirical knowledge and numerous advances have changed us as a species. The same is true for ethics. Just as we have seen an increase in ethical consciousness, the possibility of cloning research will lead to a new understanding of human beings and a new set of sanctions and ethics. And these ethical standards will not simply hold back science and technology, but will guide it so that it can truly benefit humanity.
People fear the unknown. The future of human cloning research is still uncertain, which has led to widespread negativity, but blanket rejection is not the answer. Scientific advances are sometimes revolutionary. Human cloning research, with all of its many risks, may be a precarious tightrope ride that could lead to a transformative success, but if it ignores its ethical underpinnings, the end result could be tragic for humanity. It is therefore imperative that we find a way to bring science and ethics together.
