D#9, HW#4, Toulmin - Modified

Mike Whipple

Adams

ENG 102

1 November 2007

Project’s Claim: Cloning in the aspect of using human embryos should be banned.

Reason #1: Cloning will ruin tradition human life.

• Warrant/Principle: Current method of cloning removes life and is unethical.
• Backing: In order to perform both therapeutic and destructive cloning one must start with an embryo from female and extracting stem cells, in turn killing the embryo.
• Evidence #1: “However it is not ethical to sacrifice one human life for the real or potential benefit of others” (2)
• Warrant/Principle: Human life is valuable
• Backing: It is against law throughout the world to kill, murder, another human without significant cause.
• Backing: Natural human instinct to save another humans life when in danger.
• Evidence #2: Women, needed to produce eggs for stem cell extraction, would be demoralized and exploited for cloning purposes that are not guaranteed results (2).
• Warrant/Principle: With success rates at un-motivating lows of 1-2%, women would be in high demand to harvest eggs (6 56). This would create a market strictly to harvest eggs from participants (2).
• Objection: Many argue that donating is worth it to help produce preserve life through therapeutic cloning.
• Rebuttal: Harvesting requires controlled procedures that invade the donor’s life and can cause donors to develop infertility complications (2).
• Warrant/Principle: “In addition, the National Academies recommended that ‘Human reproductive cloning should not now be practiced. It is dangerous and likely to fail’” (14 16).

Reason #2: The global scientific community needs limits set in order to prevent massive public outcry of morals.

• Warrant/Principle: Rules are needed in order to draw the line between ethics and experimentation of human embryos.
• Objection: Rules will limit the potential discovery of other aspects in the field of genetics that maybe ethical and beneficial.
• Rebuttal: If a moratorium, halt of activity to determine all aspects, is imposed, in a few years information on the safety and success rate of human cloning will be significantly greater. Thus, giving the scientific and medical board more time understood and examine legislature, which due to possible new methods could be amended.
• Evidence #1: Reproductive nuclear transplantation is largely unsuccessful
• Warrant/Principle: Data on the reproductive cloning of animals through the use of nuclear transplantation technology demonstrate that only a small percentage of attempts are successful (3 93).
• Evidence #2: Quick impulsive decisions could have grave hidden consequences.
• Warrant/Principle: In 2007 the U.S. House of Representatives turned down a cloning bill, H.R. 2560 (13).
• Backing: The bill was “…carefully constructed to encourage the creation of any number of cloned human embryos” (13). In addition, the created embryos would be grown for a number of days “…so that in order, they can be killed…to harvest their stem cells or used in other research that will kill them a practice opposed by about 75% of the public” (13).

Reason #3: Biotechnology corporations could gain control many aspects of life.

• Warrant/Principle: With stem cells and embryo processing already claimed in patents, human life would be reduced to a product (4).
• Backing: Imagine walking by the puppy store in the mall, seeing kids adoring over baby puppies. Then, in the next window down seeing cloned human babies in viewing units dressed to sell.
• Evidence #1: “…Already life science companies have leaped…by patenting both human embryos and stem cells” (5).
• Warrant/Principle: Patent is used to create an advantage. Especially regarding the retail market.
• Objection: Companies are needed in order to cover cost of developing technology.
• Rebuttal: In similar fashion, companies would strive to produce the more genetically perfect human (5). It can be conceived that no company would create a “bad” faulty clone. It would defeat the purpose of taking control and playing “God” through selective breeding.
• Evidence #2: Possibility and potential to create programmed individuals for specialized task.
• Warrant/Principle: Government or powerful companies could create mass army of soldiers or groups designed to wreck havoc such as protest or riot (4 127).
• Backing: Through mass programmed or specially raised and trained human clones on could create genocide and finish off races considered to be of lesser quality.

** Numbers following sources represent sources and pages, to aid in citing rough/final draft of paper.