Never Let Me Go and Oryx and Crake Research Paper

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of cloning focusing on moral issues, but we lack to see the potential benefits in it. For example, with the rise of people being incapable of producing children or homosexual couples wanting kids, cloning could be the answer. Being able to “have children” is a great advancement for people who originally couldn’t. As stated in the article Human Cloning Ethical Issues, couples could have biological offspring like “never before” (“Human Cloning Ethical Issues” 12). The argument of the clone being exactly the same as the “original” can be argued, as stated by the BBC article by saying clones “consider themselves to be individuals” (Lovell-Badge line 4).

Since clones are considered a younger version, or twin, of the original (Herring 57), people could create various clones of one person. One example is brought up in Human Cloning Ethical Issues where we are introduced to the possibility of creating a colony of Hitlers (”Human Cloning Ethical Issues” 11). People are crazy nowadays and will do some weird and evil things. Once the technology is available, the benefits will be great, but to have the opportunity to create murderers or evil people from history, far outweighs the benefits of cloning. Hewell-Badge strays away from cloning and says “there is no reason for even attempting [cloning]” (Hewell-Badge lines 37-38).

People as a whole have desired immortality for a very long time. Before genetic modification, it was considered a science fiction (“Human Cloning Ethical Issues” 11). Although we don’t quite understand it, cloning and gene modification is on our minds and the thought of having a “mini me” has intrigued us for a long time. On the contrary, novels like Never Let Me Go and Oryx and Crake give us prime examples of the potential harm coming from “playing God.” We are definitely curious, but sometimes, things are best left untouched. Being able to “create people and produce organs” is amazing as far as technology goes, but can be scary when you think about it in depth.

Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake: A Novel. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2003. Print.

Herring, Mark Y. Genetic Engineering: Historical Guides to Controversial Issues in America.

Greenwood Group, 2006. Print.

Human Cloning: Ethical Issues. 2nd ed. Paris: UNESCO, 2005. Print.

Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Print.

Lovell-Badge, Robin. "Clone ’Would Feel Individuality’" BBC.co.uk. BBC MMIX, 17 July 2006.

Web. 20 Sept. 2015.