CLONINING EDATORAL Essay, Research Paper
CLONING EDATORAL
The recent scientific success of cloning is a controversial topic in today’s world. The Los Angeles Time expresses many views on cloning in recent editorials. In an April, 1997 editorial “Reproductive Research Far Outpaces Public Policy” The Times interviewed both supporters and critics of cloning. One of those is Lawrence Gostin, President of Public Health at Georgetown University who is for cloning. John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe, director of the bioethics arm of the Virginia-based American Life League who is strongly against cloning. R. Alta Charo, a medical ethicist, at the University of Wisconsin and member of the president’s bioethics panel comments on the problem of the lack of official U.S. support for one side or the other of this issue. Some quotations in The La Times “Reproductive Research Far Outpaces Public Policy” have three men that all have Logical Fallacies.
Lawrence Gostin stated:
“We believe very strongly as a nation that if you free science to do its job, that it will rebound to human good”. (Times, 1997)
This statement is truly for the push through of science. Science has done many good things for the world, but it has also done many traumatic things to the world. By Gostin stating in the first part of his essay “we believe very strongly as a nation,” (Times
1997) he is begging the question. Gostin is assuming that every American thinks of science as he does.
John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe states:
“We believer that life begins at the beginning, not in the middle, and that even a single-cell child has the dignity of the children of God” (Times, 1997).
John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe makes a strong statement in this editorial. He uses God in this statement to make scientists feel guiltily about cloning. By O’Keefe using God in this editorial, the fallacy in this is stereotyping. He is arguing against cloning by putting pressure on the pro-cloning population using God. Who is he to say that there is a “God”? Who is he to say that cloning is wrong? O’Keefe is unfairly bring Christen morals and beliefs into the issue of cloning. However, Christen morals may not apply to everyone.
R. Alta Charo states:
“In the Unite States, our policies develop from the individual cases up,” says Charo, the Wisconsin ethicist. “The European system tries too design the dog and let it wag its tail. We have 50 or 100 or 150 wagging tails from which we then try to reconstruct the dog. It’s no wonder that our dog looks a little bit like a Picasso.” (Times, 1997)
Alta’s view on cloning and science in general are quite different than those of many other scientists. Alta’s problem with views on cloning that the United States neither supports nor is against cloning. He has a facilely in his editorial. He commits a false analogy. He compares states policies to a dog wagging their tale. Policies that face the government are much more in depth and complicated than a dog’s tail.
People and the government have many different views on cloning. Fallacies are errors in someone’s writings or their views that are unclear on where they stand. The government and society needs to have an open and clear mind when evaluating cloning.
WORK CITIED
LA TIMES, “Reproductive Research Far Outpaces Public Policy.” www.latimes.com (April 29, 1997).