Transcript Chapter Six: Human Cloning

Chapter Six:
Genetic Engineering,
Stem Cell Research,
and Human Cloning
Applying Ethics: A Text with Readings (10th ed.)
Julie C. Van Camp, Jeffrey Olen, Vincent Barry
Cengage Learning/Wadsworth
What is Genetic Engineering?
Scientific alterations in human possibilities
– Gene Therapy
– Stem cell research
– Human cloning
Scientific alterations in animal and plant
life
– Modified grains tolerant of disease and
drought
– Cloned animals
Why clone humans?
Creating replacement tissue (spare parts)
Producing a fully developed human being
for infertile couples
Reproducing outstanding humans in
history
Moral and Legal Issues of Cloning
Do people have a right to reproduce by any available
means?
Do other societal concerns override any such rights?
Will there be harmful effects on the cloned twin?
How will family relationships be redefined?
Could persons be cloned without their consent?
Would cloning be immoral because it is “unnatural”?
Stem Cell Research
Ethical Issues overlap cloning and abortion issues
Adult stem cell research is less controversial but
does not hold as much promise for treatment of
disease
Another issue: whether federal funding is
appropriate or whether this research should be
funded only with private funds, due to the ethical
controversy
“The Case against Perfection”
Michael J. Sandel
Ethical issues presented by rapid
developments in technology
Inadequate: familiar appeals to autonomy,
fairness, individual rights
Must consider more traditional questions,
which verge on theology
– Moral status of nature
– Proper stance of human beings toward the given
world
“Moral Status of Cloning Humans”
Michael Tooley
There is nothing intrinsically immoral about
human cloning
– No one has a right to a genetically unique nature
– Cloning does not restrict the open future of individuals
Cloning promises to be very beneficial to
society
– Happier and healthier individuals
– Solution to infertility
– Saving lives
“The Morality of Killing Human Embryos”
Bonnie Steinbock
Controversy over embryonic stem cell research
is similar to that over abortion:
– When does human life begin?
– What is the moral status of the human embryo?
Review of different approaches to “moral
status”
Conclude: permissible to use human embryos
in research as they lack moral status
“Stem Cells, Biotechnology, and Human Rights:
Implications for a Posthuman Future”
Paul Lauritzen
Too much narrow focus on stem cell
research, whether embryonic or adult
Instead, focus on
– prospect of transforming the contours of
human life
– our attitudes toward the natural world