Staff Editorial
Daily Targum (Rutgers U.)
(U-WIRE) NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- In the coming weeks the U.S. Senate will have to make a decision on the issue of cloning.
Currently the House has passed a bill banning human cloning and research cloning. There are pros, cons and thousands of arguments for both sides of the issue, but one fact that holds true is cloning for research under government regulations is for the betterment of society.
It may not be a proven fact that cloning can find cures for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or any other disease, but that is how science works. The field of science works on the basis of theories and one such theory is cloning can help cure many diseases once believed incurable. Science is a field of chance, much like exploration. There was a time when people thought the world was flat and if Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 he would fall off the earth's edge -- and look what happened. For the House to deny scientists the right to research is denying the medical field a way to advance. Medicine has advanced by leaps and bounds in the past 150 years or so and there is no telling where it could go using cloning research.
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However this should not be done with out regulation from the government, because of fears that cloning for research purposes could get out of hand.
Although this probably is not going to become like Star Wars, at the same time we shouldn't be producing full-grown humans and then chopping them up for scientific experimentation.
When the Senate hears arguments for and against cloning in the coming weeks, it needs to keep in mind the moral side of the argument as well as the scientific side. Both sides have good legitimate points, but the Senate should keep in mind that science is based on taking risks and theories.
The human species would never have come this far if it weren't for the scientific breakthroughs in the medical field, such as penicillin. It's possible research in cloning could only provide even greater ones.
