The Perfect Copy (Unraveling the Cloning Debate by Nicholas Agar

The Perfect Copy (Unraveling the Cloning Debate

by Nicholas Agar

A Report On s Discussed

Nicholas Agar is a professor of ethics and a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW . Agar has an MA from VUW and a PhD from the Australian National University . He has been teaching at VUW since 1996 . He has been known as an expert writer particularly in the field of genetics and ethics . In his book The Perfect Copy : Unraveling The Cloning Debate , he attempts to unravels the science and the ethics of cloning

and proposes ideas on how we should face this highly controversial

To clone or not to clone , that is the question that is in the center of one of the most controversial debates within the scientific community today . The present technology today has given our imagination an opportunity to deal with the perils and possibilities of cloning . Even Hollywood has ridden the cloning bandwagon and has turned out many films which exploit the . Although these films are a departure to what is possible , they still manage to pique our imagination and implant in us false notions and promises . These past few years , with the advances made in regards to cloning , the ethics of this act has become a great issue . Both sides present valid reasons to defend their claim

The debate over the morality of cloning human beings becomes a debate over contrasting images of cloning . The method of moral consistency may not give us a simple 'permitted ' or 'not permitted ' answer . The reason is that no single familiar practice will resemble cloning in every morally interesting respect . In all likelihood , we will end up constructing a moral image of cloning out of a variety of familiar activities and practices

It is often pointed out that cloning differs from the 'natural ' sexual way of having children . Some say that this unnaturalness alone suffices to make cloning wrong . A solid rebuttal to this is that things deemed unnatural but have received no objection like insulin shots , airplanes and life saving medicine are a integral part of mainstream society . If you would follow the unnatural proposal , these things must also be unallowed

The main concern in ethics is the unease which people have regarding cloning . This instinctive revulsion is said to be due to ingrained wisdom or to an upset stomache . Agar argues that if this was the basis to oppose cloning , then it is very unscientific and flimsy . Moral progress is all about subjecting sub-rational moral urges and aversions to rational scrutiny

The word clone obtains it etymological origin from the greek word klon meaning branch . Clones are copies of organisms currently or previously existing with the exact same nuclear DNA . They do not result from a sexually beginning and thus are not genetically different from their parent organism . In our world , clones are the rule rather than the exception . Most low level organisms like algae , bacteria , lower vertebrates , and plants use cloning as a means to ensure...