cloning human argumentative essay

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Human Cloning Essay

IELTS Human Cloning Essay

This is a model answer for a human cloning essay.

If you look at the task, the wording is slightly different from the common 'do you agree or disagree' essay.

However, it is essentially asking the same thing.

As people live longer and longer, the idea of cloning human beings in order to provide spare parts is becoming a reality. The idea horrifies most people, yet it is no longer mere science fiction.

To what extent do you agree with such a procedure?

Have you any reservations?

Understanding the Question and Task

You are asked if you agree with human cloning to use their body parts (in other words, what are the benefits), and what reservations (concerns) you have (in other words, what are the disadvantages).

So the best way to answer this human cloning essay is probably to look at both sides of the issue as has been done in the model answer.

As always, you must read the question carefully to make sure you answer it fully and do not go off topic.

You are specifically being asked to discuss the issue of creating human clones to then use their body parts. If you write about other issues to do with human cloning, you may go off topic.

Model Human Cloning Essay

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own experience or knowledge.

Write at least 250 words.

Model Answer for Human Cloning Essay

The cloning of animals has been occurring for a number of years now, and this has now opened up the possibility of cloning humans too. Although there are clear benefits to humankind of cloning to provide spare body parts, I believe it raises a number of worrying ethical issues.

Due to breakthroughs in medical science and improved diets, people are living much longer than in the past. This, though, has brought with it problems. As people age, their organs can fail so they need replacing. If humans were cloned, their organs could then be used to replace those of sick people. It is currently the case that there are often not enough organ donors around to fulfil this need, so cloning humans would overcome the issue as there would then be a ready supply.

However, for good reasons, many people view this as a worrying development. Firstly, there are religious arguments against it. It would involve creating other human beings and then eventually killing them in order to use their organs, which it could be argued is murder. This is obviously a sin according to religious texts. Also, dilemmas would arise over what rights these people have, as surely they would be humans just like the rest of us. Furthermore, if we have the ability to clone humans, it has to be questioned where this cloning will end. Is it then acceptable for people to start cloning relatives or family members who have died?

To conclude, I do not agree with this procedure due to the ethical issues and dilemmas it would create. Cloning animals has been a positive development, but this is where it should end.

(276 words)

The essay is well-organized, with a clear introducion which introduces the topic:

The cloning of animals has been occurring for a number of years now, and this has now opened up the possibility of cloning humans too.

And it has a thesis statement that makes it clear exactly how the human cloning essay will be structured and what the candidate's opinion is:

Although there are clear benefits to humankind of cloning to provide spare body parts, I believe it raises a number of worrying ethical issues.

The first body paragraph discusses the advantages of cloning humans, and then the second body paragraph looks at the problems associated with this. The change of direction to look at the other side is clearly marked with a transition word ("however") and a topic sentence:

However, for good reasons, many people view this as a worrying development.

Other transition words are used effectively to guide the reader through the ideas in the human cloning essay: Firstly,.. Also,... Furthermore,...

The candidate demonstrates that they can use a mix of complex structures. For example:

Due to breakthroughs in medical science and improved diets, people are living much longer than in the past.
It would involve creating another human and then eventually killing it in order to use its organs, which it could be argued is murder.
...if we have the ability to clone humans, it has to be questioned where this cloning will end.

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How We Feel about Human Cloning

Guest post by Joshua May

Suppose you desperately want a healthy child to build a family of your own. As is increasingly common, however, you can’t do it naturally – whether from infertility, a genetic disease you don’t want to pass on, or a non-traditional relationship. If you seek a genetic connection with the child, there are some limitations to the main alternatives: adoption, surrogacy, and in vitro fertilization. You may yearn for more options.

How would you feel about cloning? Take the nucleus of a cell from yourself or a loved one, then put it into an egg that will eventually develop into a baby that shares nearly all the genes of the donor cell. The resulting baby will simply be a kind of ‘delayed twin’ of the donor.

Most people believe this is immoral. There’s a bit more support for therapeutic uses that merely create new tissue, for example. But, at least in the US and UK, people overwhelmingly condemn cloning for the purposes of creating new human lives. In fact, a recent poll suggests there is little disagreement in America over this issue, where human cloning is among the most widely condemned topics (alongside polygamy and infidelity).

That’s what people think, but how do they feel ? Controversial bioethical issues often generate intense feelings. Some bioethicists treat cloning in particular as a line in the sand that we mustn’t cross, for fear of sliding down a slippery slope to a dystopia.

Consider Leon Kass, who played a major role in public policy as chair of George W. Bush’s President’s Council on Bioethics. Kass argues that there is wisdom in repugnance toward human cloning, allowing us to ‘intuit and feel, immediately and without argument, the violation of things that we rightfully hold dear’. As opposed to mere unease or sadness, Kass and some others have argued that disgust is such a powerful and distinctive emotion that we should take it seriously as a moral guide when deliberating about ethical issues.

An empirical claim lurks. Such bioethicists assume that people in general share their reaction of repugnance. Besides, if we can uncover the emotional reactions people tend to feel toward disputed moral issues, then we can better understand why they hold the beliefs they do. Does the prospect of cloning humans make us sick? Scared? Sad? Angry? Excited? At ease?

In my paper , I provide some initial evidence that people (at least in the States) feel primarily anxious and curious about human reproductive cloning. These were the most frequently self-reported negative and positive emotions, not disgust, fear, sadness, anger, excitement, amusement, comfort, or joy. Now disgust was interestingly the third most commonly reported negative emotion when selected from a pre-set list. But only about one third of participants selected it, and even fewer mentioned disgust before seeing such a list. Moreover, the term ‘disgust’ is used in many ways, sometimes just to indicate one’s moral disapproval rather than an emotion. For example, writer Philip Pullman once condemned a ban on sending prisoners books in prison, calling it ‘disgusting’ . Such uses of the term may well be to merely signal one’s disapproval, not to report an emotional reaction that is guiding one’s judgment.

Data on people’s reactions don’t directly support the morality or immorality of human cloning. But there are various implications.

First, it’s not so clear that there’s a ‘widespread’ reaction of repugnance to human cloning that we should heed. Our emotional reactions are more complicated and varied. Even if there are sound arguments against human cloning, arguments from repugnance rest on shaky ground.

Second, we should be careful to attribute certain reactions to the populace without some empirical data in support. We should scrutinise, for example, talk of ‘the widespread repugnances of humankind,’ as Kass has put it.

Finally, I hope this initial dataset will motivate further research on how we think and feel about various contemporary moral issues. The kinds of reactions people have can illuminate their concerns and the nature of the moral disagreements that animate public discourse.

When it comes to human cloning, for example, we now have some evidence that people don’t necessarily feel repugnance toward it and thus don’t perceive cloning as violating things they hold dear. The combination of anxiety and curiosity may indicate instead that the morality of human cloning is question because it’s perceived as novel and unpredictable.

Read the full paper here .

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