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Morality of Human Cloning Essay

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The novel Brave New World presents us with a vision of a future where human beings are no longer born the “natural” way but are rather manufactured in identical batches to certain specifications. Where concepts like “mother” and “father” are scatological and children are taught only to keep the order and complete their predetermined occupations. By the end of the novel Mr. Huxley has us thankful that such a world is beyond our grasp. However, with the successful cloning of a Scottish sheep named Dolly, images of a Brave New World became so much closer to reality. Even just the word clone can summon dark images of lines of identical individuals with bar codes tattooed on their necks walking in lock-step fashion and it is due in no small …show more content…

Can we not also add a cloned child to the roster and still be ignorant of their origin? As unnerving as it might appear the method of procreation is completely arbitrary, more so ought we to be concerned with the intent of procreation if we must lay a blame. Physically a cloned child is no different from you or me but can we say that the child is any less human from extra-physical loss? Whether or not a clone would be less than human begs us that we ought first discern what it is that defines a person as a person. Detailing free will and individualistic identity necessitate the ability to be self-aware and to make decisions without requiring outside influence which, compose the basis of what delineates a human person. The problem of identity sometimes arises with identical twins in that we many times ascertain them to be the same person due merely to their often indistinguishable appearance. Experience however tells us that even though they have the same genetic profile they constitute discrete identities. A clone, against our intuitions, would not have the same identity as the one from whom they were cloned and additionally even were one to take a person and subject them to one scenario they would end up completely different than if you had subjected them in a

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