Write a one paragraph response explaining the four different perspectives below on human cloning. Introduce the authors’ full names (titles aren’t necessary for this paragraph, but they would be for an essay) to indicate each of their different opinions. Consider the most strategic way of how to organize/structure your paragraph to show connections and contrasts between each of the source’s arguments Use transitions carefully, as they will show how you relate the articles to each other.
Perspective 1: Patricia Baird, “Should Human Cloning be Permitted?”
“...In conclusion, using nuclear-transfer cloning to allow people to have a child introduces a different way of reproduction for our species. Once we breach this barrier, it leaves us with no place to stop. Given all the problems outlined, the reasons for permitting cloning to produce a person are insufficiently compelling. Even in the few circumstances where the case for human cloning seems justified, there are alternative solutions. We are at an appropriate stopping place on a slippery slope. Not all reasons why a person might wish to copy his or her cells are unethical, but given there are other options open to people wishing to form a family, concerns about individual and social harms from cloning are strong enough that it is not justified to permit it.”
Perspective 2: Chris MacDonald, “Yes, Human Cloning Should be Permitted.”
“The fact that a portion of society—even a majority—finds an activity distasteful is insufficient grounds for passing a law forbidding it....human cloning for reproductive purposes has legitimate, morally acceptable applications—for example for infertile couples, and for gay couples.”
Perspective 3: Jacob M. Appel, “Should We Really Fear Reproductive Human Cloning?”
“In an ideal world, human reproductive cloning would be safe, legal and rare. I say rare because my guess is that the vast majority of people, myself included, would have little desire to raise cloned offspring. After all, it is now possible to clone pet dogs--but few of us would choose to spend a spare $150,000 on such a venture. Yet thirty-eight years after James Watson's seminal essay, "Moving Toward the Clonal Man" called for increased public debate on this promising and perplexing subject, I don't believe that we should be so quick to greet cloning technology with a permanent injunction. Instead, what human reproductive cloning requires at the moment is a yellow light, telling us to proceed with extreme caution, until we know with confidence whether the technology can ever be used to produce healthy babies.”
Perspective 4: Leon Kass, “The Wisdom of Repugnance”
“We are repelled by the prospect of cloning human beings not because of the strangeness or novelty of the undertaking, but because we intuit and feel, immediately and without argument, the violation of things that we rightfully hold dear. Repugnance, here as elsewhere, revolts against the excesses of human wilfulness, warning us not to transgress what is unspeakably profound. Indeed, in this age in which everything is held to be permissible so long as it is freely done, in which our given human nature no longer commands respect, in which our bodies are regarded as mere instruments of our autonomous rational wills, repugnance may be the only voice left that speaks up to defend the central core of our humanity.”
