There are many ways in which human cloning is expected to benefit mankind. Below is a list that is far from complete.
Rejuvenation. It may someday be possible to reverse the aging process because of what we learn from cloning.
Human cloning technology could be used to reverse heart attacks. Heart disease is the number one killer in the United States and several other industrialized countries.
There has been a breakthrough with human stem cells. Embryonic stem cells can be grown to produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged ones. Skin for burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, spinal cord cells, hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys could be produced. By combining this technology with human cloning technology it may be possible to produce needed tissue for suffering people that will be free of rejection by their immune systems.
Infertility. With cloning, infertile couples could have children. Despite getting a fair amount of publicity in the news current treatments for infertility, in terms of percentages, are not very successful. Couples go through physically and emotionally painful procedures for a small chance of having children. Many couples run out of time and money without successfully having children. Human cloning could make it possible for many more infertile couples to have children than ever before possible.
Plastic, reconstructive, and cosmetic surgery. Because of human cloning and its technology the days of silicone breast implants and other cosmetic procedures that may cause immune disease should soon be over. With the new technology, instead of using materials foreign to the body for such procedures, doctors will be able to manufacture bone, fat or connective tissue. Anyone will able to have their appearance altered to their satisfaction. Victims of terrible accidents that deform the face should now be able to have their features repaired with new, safer, technology.
Defective genes. The average person carries 8 defective genes inside them. These defective genes allow people to become sick when they would otherwise remain healthy. With human cloning and its technology it may be possible to ensure that we no longer suffer because of our defective genes.
Down's syndrome. Those women at high risk for Down's syndrome can avoid that risk by cloning.
Liver failure. We may be able to clone livers for liver transplants.
Kidney failure. We may be able to clone kidneys for kidney transplants.
Leukemia. We should be able to clone the bone marrow for children and adults suffering from leukemia.
Cancer. We may learn how to switch cells on and off through cloning and thus be able to cure cancer.
Spinal cord injury. We may learn to grow nerves or the spinal cord back again when they are injured.
Testing for genetic disease. Cloning technology can be used to test for and perhaps cure genetic diseases.
The above list only scratches the surface of what human cloning technology can do for mankind. The suffering that can be relieved is staggering. Why should another child die from leukemia when if the technology is allowed we should be able to cure it in a few years time?
From e-mail to the Human Cloning Foundation it is clear that many people would support human cloning in the following situations:
1) A couple has one child then they become infertile and cannot have more children. Cloning would enable such a couple to have a second child, perhaps a younger twin of the child they already have.
2) A child is lost soon after birth to a tragic accident. Many parents have lost a baby in a fire, car accident, or other unavoidable disaster. These grief stricken parents often say that they would like to have their perfect baby back. Human cloning would allow such parents to have a twin of their lost baby, but it would be like other twins, a unique individual and not a carbon copy of the child that was lost under heartbreaking circumstances.
3) A woman who through some medical emergency ended up having a hysterectomy before being married or having children. Such women have been stripped of their ability to have children. These women need a surrogate mother to have a child of their own DNA, which can be done either by human cloning.
4) Two parents have a baby boy. Unfortunately the baby has muscular dystrophy. They have another child and it's another boy with muscular dystrophy. They decide not to have any more children. Each boy has over 20 operations as doctors attempt to keep them healthy and mobile. Both boys die as teenagers. The childless parents donate their estate to curing muscular dystrophy and to having their boys cloned when medical science advances enough so that their DNA can live again, but free of muscular dystrophy.
Opponents of human cloning argue that the process will likely lead to severely disabled children. For example, bioethicist Thomas Murray of the HastingsCenter argues that "it is absolutely inevitable that groups are going to try to clone a human being. But they are going to create a lot of dead and dying babies along the way: because of the difficulty of cloning any living animal, it is likely that there would be a great number of failures in the creation of a living human clone, such as clones without viable immune systems or other gross genetic failures.
Here are three reasons why we should say no to cloning: most people think that human cloning is not ethical to make a baby.
1. Non ethical health risks from mutation of genes.
An abnormal baby would be a likely tragedy. The technique is very risky right now. A particular worry is the possibility that the genetic material used from the adult will continue to age so that the genes in a newborn baby clone could be - say - 30 years old or more on the day of birth.
2. Non ethical emotional risks
A child grows up knowing her mother is her sister, her grandmother is her mother. Her father is her brother-in-law. Every time her mother looks at her she is seeing herself growing up.
3. Non ethical risk of abuse of the technology
What would Hitler have done with cloning technology if available in the 1940s? There are powerful leaders in every generation who will seek to abuse this technology for their own purposes. Going ahead with cloning technology makes this far more likely