It would be hard to find any subject more controversial than human cloning. People find it either totally fantastic or totally repugnant. Human cloning bolds the promise of cures for what are now incurable diseases, sight for the blind, hearing for the deaf, new organs to replace damaged or worn-out ones.


The word cloning also brings to mind the possibility of headless human bodies grown only to be picked apart for their parts. That possibility was suggested in 1997 after British scientist Jonathan Slack created a headless frog, He was criticised by scientists all around the world lead to the creation of headless humans.


Most people do not mind the cloning of animals because it could be useful in increasing the world’s food supply, but the cloning of human beings is something different. Although its medical applications border on miraculous, cloning also comes with a sting. It involves both the destruction human embryos and the possibility of turning the creation of human beings into a manufacturing process.


 As soon as the first successful cloning of a mammal was announced in 1997, controversy broke out around the world. Everyone knew it was just a matter of time before somebody would try to clone human beings too.


The main problem with cloning is deciding what to do about all the failed attempts. It takes a lot of failures to achieve one successful result. At present the cloning success rate is only about 5%, and of those that do succeed, more than half of them die afterwards. How many human freaks would be created and killed before the first experiment succeeded?


There is also the ethical point of view. Does man have the right to create human beings, or is human creation something that only nature or God should do?


Finally, we also have to consider the clone. Would a clone have a soul (spirit) just a normal human being or would it not have one? Is it right to kill human embryos the same way that laboratory mice are killed?Not even scientists have the answers to complex questions like these because a lot depends on a person’s religious beliefs or concept about what constitutes human life.


The debate over cloning is complicated by the fact that there are two different kinds of cloning – reproductive cloning, which creates an exact copy of the person being cloned, and therapeutic cloning, which creates stem cells for the purpose of growing replacement organs or treating certain untreatable diseases or blindness. Tissues that contain the patient’s own DNA are not rejected by the body, which what often happens with donor organs transplants.


The problem with therapeutic cloning is that it always results in the destruction of a human embryo. Even though an early stage embryo is just a collection of cells and does not even resemble a fetus, it could eventually become one. Very few people are comfortable with the idea of destroying a potential human life.


A law passed in  the UK in 2004, gave scientists there the green light to begin experimenting with therapeutic cloning, and world reaction was immediate. Opponents are afraid that allowing therapeutic cloning is just the first step to legalised reproductive cloning too. They say it is almost impossible to allow therapeutic cloning while preventing reproductive cloning from taking place.